


Eggplant Press

by bethonie (Formula_Tea)



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: AU, F/M, Family, Killing, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Spies & Secret Agents, Suicide Attempt, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-08
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 15:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 55,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2274237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Formula_Tea/pseuds/bethonie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long time since Felipe has been able to go to the train station without the almost overwhelming wave of sadness, but the failed suicide attempt of a teenage girl puts things into perspective - and puts the hit man he works for on edge. But all the security checks are just for paranoia, aren't they? There couldn't possibly be any threat from a suicidal teenager.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The train station

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time posting fan fiction. Ever. Please feel free if you've got any constructive criticism. I've the first few chapters written, but wanted to post this before I bottled out.

It had been a long time since Felipe had been able to visit a train station without feeling the overwhelming wave of sadness and it made him feel pathetic. It had been nearly a year. Nearly a year of continuing his life, of collection clients and dropping them off, of the gut wrenching sadness of watching the trains go. He needed to get over it. That’s what Kimi said. But he couldn’t.

Another grey day, and Felipe was sat on an uncomfortable bench in the deserted train station, his jacket zipped up to his chin and the woollen hat Fernando had brought him as a joke pulled tight over his ears. Why were the trains always running late?

_The next train at platform two will not be stopping. Please keep away from the platform edge._

It was sad that Felipe knew all the announcements. He spent way too much time here.

A girl – about fifteen or sixteen years old, Felipe judged – stood, catching his eye. She looked freezing, wearing only a thin top and jeans. Really, she should have been in school, Felipe thought. Something was wrong. Felipe hovered over the seat, watching the girl. She was trembling and, at first, Felipe thought it was just for the cold, but the trails her tears had left on her face as shined as she passed under one of the lights and it was clear she was upset.

Felipe grabbed the girl and dragged her away from the platform edge as the train sped past the platform, every carriage whipping the air again.

She was going to jump. She was going to fucking jump.

Only when the train had passed and the sound died away did Felipe realise he was lying on top of the girl. He rolled off, lying on his back on the concrete, breathless.

“Oh my fucking god.” The train station was deserted. It always was, and he usually appreciated the apparent privacy. But now he was lying on an empty platform with a suicidal teenager, the train still ringing in his ears, and he could have really done with some help.

“Oh my fucking god,” Felipe whispered again.

Someone moaned beside him. He pushed himself up and looked down at the girl. She’d rolled onto her stomach, arms and hair covering her face. Once the ringing had stopped, Felipe could hear she was sobbing. He bit his lip and looked around, desperate for some help, but there was nobody there.

“Are ok? Physically, I mean. Did not hurt you or anything.”

The sobbing stopped for a moment, as if she was surprised to hear a voice. “You saved my life,” she moaned, her voice muffled by her arms.

“My name’s Felipe,” he offered.

“I’m such a screw up,” the girl squeaked, panting between cries as she tried to readjust herself to breathing. “I can’t even do that right.”

“Hey, hey, hey, calm down,” Felipe said softly. It was the wrong thing to say. It was the exact wrong thing to say.

“Calm down?” she cried. The girl looked up at him, her short brown hair falling clumsily over her face. “Calm down. I nearly fucking died. Who are you? What gives you the right to- to.” She collapsed again, sobbing even louder. Felipe looked around. Somebody had to hear this or see this. Somebody else had to be here to deal with this. But there was nobody. So he shuffled closer to her, rubbing soothing circles into her back. “I don’t want to die,” she mumbled, curling into Felipe. “I don’t want to do this anymore, but I don’t… I don’t know.”

Felipe patted her back, still glancing around for somebody to help her.

“Have you got a name?” Felipe asked.

“Lucy.”

“Lucy?” Felipe said. “Alright. My name’s Felipe.”

“You already said that,” Lucy mumbled, shuddering and trying to stop crying.

“Did I?” Felipe asked. “Come on. There’s a bench over there. Come on.”

Felipe lifted Lucy to stand when she nodded. The girl stumbled under his arm, as tall as Felipe but doubled over. As they walked, Felipe looked her over. She seemed to be fine. He hadn’t hurt her when they fell. At least that was something he could be thankful for. Lucy was mumbling something, but he couldn’t quite understand what. Something to do with sorry.

“Is alright,” Felipe whispered, sitting down and pulling Lucy down with him. He ran his fingers through her hair, trying to calm her down. “Is not your fault. Come here.”

“I’m a terrible friend,” Lucy hissed, grabbing her own hair in tight fists. “I’m a let down and a terrible friend and why did I even come here in the first place. I’m so stupid.”

“Want me to phone someone?” Felipe asked. “Your parents.”

“No!” Lucy cried, pulling her hands away from her face to glare at Felipe. “You can’t phone them. They can’t find out.”

“Ok,” Felipe said quickly, his hands up to show he wasn’t holding a phone. “Who would you like me to phone?”

Lucy stared at him for a moment, trying to read his face. Then her own face fell again, a fresh wave of tears beginning to run. “There. Is. No. Body,” she said between sobs, falling into Felipe and pressing her face against his jacket. “I. A. Ban. Don. Ed. My. Friends. And. Ran. Off. To. This. Stu. Pid. Uni. Ver. Si. Ty. And. Now. They. Don’t. Even. Want. Me. And. I’m. So. Use. Less.”

“Hey, hey, calm down,” Felipe whispered, rubbing her back again as Lucy moaned into him. University. She couldn’t even have finished school. This didn’t make much sense to him. “Come on, Lucy. Where do you live?”

Lucy didn’t answer for a while, barely able to breathe whilst she cried. Felipe sighed, still rubbing her back and still looking around for help from elsewhere, but he knew there was nobody on the platform. There was never anybody at the platform.

“Victoria Towers,” Lucy said, out of the blue.

“Hmmm?”

“I live at Victoria Towers,” Lucy said, looking up at Felipe. Tears and snot ran down her now red face, but she had managed to calm down enough to speak. “Why?”

“Ok, am waiting for a… client.” Kimi would kill him if he left a client stranded here, especially as it was somebody who had come to see _him_. “Am going to drop him off at the office, then take you home, ok?”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Lucy said quickly. “I’m fine. I can…”

“Are not fine, Lucy,” Felipe said, quietly, wiping her hair out of her face. “Let me take you home. Is no bother to me, swear. You are no bother to me.”

“But…”

“Lucy, Am doing this whether you want you to or not,” Felipe said. “Would probably be easier if you agreed.”

The girl was silent for a moment. She’d stopped shaking, loosely curling her fingers into her hair as Felipe rubbed her back.

“Felipe?” she asked, quietly, looking up at him.

“Yeah?”

“That’s a nice name.”

 


	2. The client

Felipe stood as the train pulled into the station, Lucy already waiting safely in the car. He never knew what the client looked like and had long since given up trying to guess. He was almost always wrong. Kimi gave the client a description of Felipe, and they came to him.   
If he was honest, it put him on edge a little, waiting for a client and having absolutely no idea who they were. The people who came to Eggplant Press to see Kimi were generally not people he should mess with.  
The small crowd began to thin and Felipe spotted a young man in a sharp suit with a black brief case waiting by one of the train doors. He had short, sandy blonde hair and sunglasses over his eyes. It wasn’t sunny. Not even close.  
Felipe looked away as soon as he realised he was looking. The crowd had almost entirely gone by now, and he watched a conductor signal to the driver that they were good to go. The train pulled away as quickly as it had come, leaving the platform in silence again. This time Felipe wasn’t alone.   
When he looked again, the sandy haired man had joined him beside the bench.  
“Felipe Massa?” the stranger asked.  
“From Eggplant Press,” Felipe confirmed.  
“Is there a coffee shop on the way?” the stranger asked.  
“Already brought lattes,” Felipe said.  
Code. Stupid code, in Felipe’s opinion. It was supposed to stop people tricking their way into Eggplant, but not once had Felipe been approached by anyone trying to get to Kimi without the code. He played along with his boss’ paranoia, though. It might save their lives one day, he supposed.  
Felipe led the stranger up the stairs off of the platform. He offered to take the briefcase, but the client refused, as Felipe knew he would. He tried not to think about what might be in there as they made their way out of the train station, giving a small nod to the man at the ticket desk on his way out.  
“Name?” Felipe asked as they crossed the road to the car park.  
“Do you really think that’s a good idea?” the client asked.  
“You know mine,” Felipe pointed out. “Do not tell me if you do not want to.”  
“I’d rather not,” the client said.  
Felipe said nothing, leading the client across the car park to the gleaming black Mercedes near the middle of the car park. Mark and Fernando, who ran the blog side of Eggplant Press, liked to joke that it looked like something secret government officials would use to pick up eye witnesses from crash sites. Felipe mostly ignored them, but couldn’t help but agree.  
Felipe opened the back door for the client to get in. Lucy was asleep in the passenger seat, and Felipe didn’t want to disturb her. Once his passenger was inside, Felipe climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled carefully out of the car park.  
As he drove to the Eggplant Press headquarters, Felipe was watching his passenger in the rear view mirror. He was young; younger than Felipe. He was probably a business man, trying to get rid of a competitor. Or a blast from the past. Felipe had no idea who any of Kimi’s clients actually were, or why they really wanted his services, but he liked to make up stories. Spies and ex-lovers and business deals gone wrong. It was probably much more boring than that, but Felipe would never know.  
The client was a business man, he decided. He was too young to be trying to run from his past, to even have one. The client had spent all the time since he had left college trying to build up a career, and there was just one person standing in his way, the person he had come to see Kimi about. Felipe had come to recognise money and this man definitely had it, but Felipe didn’t think he’d earned it. He looked like he was born into it, but he wanted to the business thing himself. Maybe the person he’d come to see Kimi about was his own father. Felipe liked that idea. It was interesting.  
Maybe he spent too much time around people who believed every conspiracy theory going.  
“Who’s the girl?” the client asked after almost fifteen minutes of silence.  
“Nobody,” Felipe said, glancing over at Lucy in the passenger seat, curled up. He cringed when he noticed her shoes on the seat. If they left a mark… “We’re all nobody,”  
“Of course,” the client said, then tuned back to gaze out of the window again.  
Felipe looked down at Lucy again. She must have been exhausted. He still had no idea what he was supposed to do with her. Maybe she’d left a note for her parents or flat mate or whoever she lived with. She had to have left a note for someone. Felipe could take her back and whoever she’d left the note for could look after her.  
“Why couldn’t I get off of the train at this stop?” the client asked as they passed another train station.  
“Because you were told to get off at the other one,” Felipe said, coldly. Now he was certain the client hadn’t earned the money he wore.  
Eggplant Press head-quarters were located a little way out of the town centre, in a small retail park that was only really visited for the McDonald’s it played host to. From the outside, the shop looked abandoned, with the doors bordered up and blinds keeping prying eyes away from the window. There was a small staff car park around the back of the shop which Felipe pulled into. Fernando and Mark’s powder blue Beetle was already parked there, as well as Kimi’s Jeep and Jenson’ sports car (it was another one every other week and Felipe was long past admiring them now). Felipe pulled the car to a stop in the space nearest the door and, like a good little chauffer, opened the door for the client.  
For half a moment, he hesitated, but then decided against waking Lucy to bring her inside. He’d only be in there a couple of seconds, and all his co-workers would moan at him about the ‘security breech’. He left the girl in the car, then led the client inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short inbetweeny chapter. Sorry it couldn't be anymore interesting... It gets better (I promise!)


	3. The Eggplant Press

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little look into the everyday workings at the office of a conspiracy theory blog that is completely one hundred per cent not the cover for a hit man. No way. Nuh uh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how realistic this would be (having absolutely zero experience with hit men (or hit people, if you would prefer)), but I liked the idea.

Jenson sat at the desk, chewing his pen, trying his hardest to word the email right. He wanted to come across intelligent, but he wasn’t sure that was possible when you were complaining about the colour of the tissue paper in your bath salt gift set. Why Jessica couldn’t write her own complaints emails, he didn’t know.

Felipe led the client into the small back room of the former shop that now served as the reception area. Jenson couldn’t help but wince at how young the client was. Even though he was the one who did the background checks on all the people who visited Eggplant Press offices, he was always shocked at how young they always seemed to be.

“Jenson Button,” Jenson said, holding out a hand for the client to shake. “We spoke on the phone?”

There was a glimmer of recognition in the client’s face, but he didn’t change the frosty expression and he didn’t accept Jenson’s hand. The secretary nodded and took a deep breath. Felipe gave a small smile and made to leave.

“Wait a second,” Jenson said quickly, rummaging around in the drawers behind the desk. He liked to keep things organised, but that usually ended up in something getting lost. He found the file he was looking for below Tupperware box his lunch had been stored in and handed it to the driver. “Fernando wanted you to have this. I’m not sure what it is, but there you go.”

Felipe looked down at the file and flicked threw a couple of pages, a grin spreading on his face. “Thank you. Tell Fernando thank you.”

“Tell him yourself, he’s in their office,” Jenson said, but Felipe shook his head.

“Have to get going,” he said, quickly. “Will see you tomorrow.”

“Bye,”

Jenson stood and looked over the client again. Even though he knew the young man wouldn’t give his name, Jenson already knew enough about him to write his life story. It was the detailed research into everyone that knew where Eggplant Press’ head-quarters were that put him – and Kimi – at ease.

“Let me take you to Mr Raikkonen’s office,” Jenson said, leading the client to the staircase that led to the offices.

At the top of the stairs was the mostly disused break room, the door closed over to Jenson’s relief. He liked to give the impression of professionalism to all clients that came to the head-quarters, even those that only existed to make sure their cover looked real enough, and the break room was in no way professional looking.

He didn’t even pause there, turning towards the back of the shop where the corridor led to the two offices.

The first they passed belonged to Mark and Fernando, their names shining from a plaque someone had mounted on the door, and, as they passed, raised voices could be heard from inside, causing the client to slow. Jenson mentally groaned.

“Sorry about them,” he said, trying to pull the client along. It wasn’t that he was embarrassed about the cover. It was quite simply genius, in his opinion. Eggplant Press was, to the rest of the world, a conspiracy theory blog: a place for weirdoes and crazy people to try to tell their story to the world. He was more embarrassed about the people who ran it.

Something smashing against the other side of the wall made the client jump, shaking his frosted expression for only an instant.

Jenson sighed. “They’re nothing to do with Mr Raikkonen, you do understand? They’re simply cover. This way.”

He hurried on to the office at the end of the hallway, the very back of the building. It seemed ominous to Jenson, stood at the end of the hall with no sign or plaque, and he always wondered why people weren’t drawn to the door where the real business lay, but most of the freaks that came to Eggplant Press were probably so caught up in actually being listened to, they wouldn’t have noticed if there was a path of blood leading up the hallway and dripping down the door.

Jenson knocked twice on the door and waited for the man on the other side to call them in before opening it and letting the client inside. He didn’t follow, even though he would have a transcript of the entire conversation ready by the following morning, but gave a small nod to Kimi before shutting the door and marching back down the hall.

Fernando and Mark did not get the same politeness. The raised voices were silenced when Jenson hammered on the door and he didn’t wait to be called in before he opened the door.

“What the fuck is wrong with you guys?” he hissed before he even saw what was happening in Mark’s office. Fernando was stood on the chair behind his boyfriend’s desk, a pen pot in his hand. Mark was giggling wickedly on the other side of the room, holding a glass over a piece of paper. He glanced over at Jenson before quickly returning his gaze to whatever had trapped in the glass.

“Make him take it away,” Fernando snapped, not moving from the chair.

“Aw, come on, she’s only little,” Mark said, lifting the glass to eye height. When Jenson came closer he could see the spider. It wasn’t that small, he thought. Not jumping on the furniture and yelling whilst they had a client in big, but big.

“Make him get rid of it,” Fernando snapped.

“You pair, Kimi has a client,” Jenson hissed, trying to stay angry. Sometimes he felt like he was the only adult working here, but it was so easy for Mark and Fernando to have him laughing with them.

“Alright, alright.” Mark laughed and took the spider to the window, causing Fernando to shift a little in the chair. The chair toppled over and Fernando came crashing to the floor. Mark burst out laughing, dropping both spider and glass, and rushed over to help Fernando.

“You _pair_ ,” Jenson hissed, slamming the door shut when he realised he’d left it open. He spotted the spider trying to scurry away and stepped on it before Fernando could start screaming.

The operation at Eggplant Press had been unchanged for years. Both the bloggers pretended they didn’t know what went on at the end of the hall, but it was just an act for the clients. It was the same act Jenson played and the same one Felipe played. The difference was, Jenson didn’t act like a child when he knew they had real business happening, and he didn’t understand why Mark and Fernando would act like _this_ when they knew Kimi had a client.

“Sorry, Jenson,” Fernando said, pushing himself up off of the floor, Mark still laughing. “We didn’t mean- Did you give Felipe that things?”

“Yeah,” Jenson said with a small sigh. “Can you two please just act like grown-ups?”

“Sorry, Jenson,” Fernando said again. Then a thought occurred to him and he jumped away from Mark. “Did you get that spider?”

Jenson sighed again, unable to stop the smile spreading across his face. “I got the spider.”

“Aw,” Mark moaned. “Spoil sport.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is a really slow start, but I wasn't sure where it was going when it was written. Stuff happens again soon! Promise!


	4. The Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felipe has to take on responsibility for the girl, but she *seems* fine enough.

By the time Felipe returned to the car, Lucy was awake. He went to dump the file Jenson had given him onto the passenger seat when he remembered her and looked around to find the teenager playing with her phone.

“Are you ok?” Felipe asked, before he realised that was a stupid question and she was definitely not ok.

She gave a small nod anyway. “Do you work here?” she asked, quietly.

“Yeah, as a…. um… driver,” Felipe said, putting the file on the back seat. He glanced up at the back window behind which he knew was Kimi’s office, and wondered if his boss was watching him. Pushing that thought out of his mind, he pulled out of the car park. Lucy frowned as he came around into the retail park and she saw the abandoned shop front of the Eggplant Press head-quarters for the first time, but she didn’t comment on it. “Where do you work?” Felipe asked.

“I’m an assistant for some entrepreneur,” Lucy said, quietly, suddenly fascinated by a loose thread on her top. “Well, I’m an assistant for the assistant for some entrepreneur, but it’s the same thing really.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“You could say that.”

“Do not like your job?”

Lucy gave a weak laugh, moving her attention from the loose thread to out of the window. “The boss is an idiot. Ever heard of Lewis Hamilton?”

Felipe thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Should I?”

“According to him,” Lucy said. “And Sebastian, the first assistant. They go on like the brand’s the best thing since sliced bread, but it’s just buying and selling. It’s just money making. It’s not like it’s anything important.” Lucy sighed. “Stop me. Sorry. I’ve had this rant so many times you wouldn’t believe it. But I get paid. And, as I have absolutely _no_ future now, I might as well make the most of it.”

She showed him a big, forced smile and sighed again, falling back into her chair.

Victoria Towers was in the most expensive part of town. Felipe guessed this place wasn’t paid for by whatever student loan she must have had when she was at university, and she definitely didn’t look like she should have been able to pay for living space in the building, but Felipe had to assume today was not going to display an accurate representation of the girl. Maybe she was a lot better presented on days with a more regular line of events.

For the first time in he didn’t know how long, Felipe pulled into a car park where the Mercedes didn’t stick out like a sore thumb. The block of flats was a tower of green tinted glass and black tiles, reaching into the murky clouds that were a permanent feature above the city. Lucy looked up at it, tears in her eyes, and Felipe got the feeling this was probably not the best thing to do. Maybe he should have taken her to a hospital, or to her work. To places where people knew what to do.

“Come on,” Felipe said, turning off the engine and climbing out of the car.

“What are you doing?” Lucy asked.

“Taking you inside,” Felipe said, watching as Lucy stumbled out of the car, shaking in the cold or in fear. Felipe gave her a weak smile and put an arm over her shoulders, hoping this would help. The teenager looked as if she was going to crumble, but didn’t pull away as Felipe led her across the car park, through a revolving door and into the lobby. The doorman gave him a funny look, but he must have recognised Lucy, as he let them past without comment. There were two lifts on the opposite wall to the door, and Felipe pressed the button to call for them before turning back to Lucy. “What floor?”

“Four,” Lucy croaked. She was still shaking and Felipe rubbed her arm to try to warm her up, but he got the feeling it wasn’t the cold that was making her shake.

A lift came and Felipe pressed the button for the fourth floor. The doors closed again without anyone else getting in and they travelled up the building. The back wall of the lift was glass, giving a view of the city centre in a faint grey tinge. It wasn’t a brilliant view this far down, but Felipe imagined it looked quite nice further up. There wasn’t much time to enjoy it before the mechanical ping sounded and the doors opened.

“Which flat?” Felipe asked as he led Lucy out of the lift. The teenager stumbled away from him, leading Felipe down the corridor towards her flat. Felipe followed in silence, trying to ignore the fact he had never been in such an expensive building in all his life. It was hard though. They passed walls that were made completely of mirrors, and it was clear he didn’t belong here just as much as Lucy didn’t. She came to a stop outside a door and gave him a weak smile.

“Here’s home,” she said. “Thank you… for bringing me here. And… well, for not letting me do something stupid.”

“Is fine,” Felipe said, quietly. “Have you got a key?”

Lucy shook her head but, when she turned the door handle, the door opened. “I didn’t lock it,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d need to. Thank you, Felipe. That really is a nice name.”

“Let me come in,” Felipe said before Lucy could disappear. “Make some tea.”

“You don’t have to,” Lucy said, almost desperately. “It’s fine.”

“Are your flatmates home yet?” Felipe asked. He didn’t even know what time it was. Would it be strange if they were back yet?

“I don’t have flatmates,” Lucy said, quietly, not putting up any fight when Felipe followed her inside. “There’s just me.”

“Just you?” Felipe asked, looking around. The flat was huge, the front door leading into a hotel style living area: sofas, television, kitchen area, table and chairs. Doors led off into other rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms, he guessed. It was big enough to accommodate a reasonably large family, though Felipe could never imagine children in a place like this. There was too much white and cream and glass.

Lucy gave a weak smile as she gestured around at the emptiness. “Just me. Would you like a tea? Or coffee?”

“Coffee, please,” Felipe said, quietly, still slightly in awe of the place. It was speckles. He felt as if he should take off his shoes before he wondered inside, but Lucy had crossed the room happily in less that sterile footwear, so Felipe did the same, crossing to the round table that separated the living room to the kitchen. There was a notebook upon it and, once Lucy was busy with the tea, Felipe flipped it over to read.

_Mr Hamilton. I suppose I did it then. You probably guessed what happened. Sorry to leave you in the lurch. Hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience. Lucy._

Felipe’s stomach lurched. The note. The person she’d written to was her boss. He turned the notebook back over as Lucy returned with a tray with two mugs, sugar and milk, placing it carefully over the notebook. She must have seen him looking, but she just gave him a small smile and offered a spoon for the sugar.

“Don’t you live with other students?” Felipe asked.

“I did,” Lucy said, carefully tipping a spoonful of sugar into her drink. “Then I got kicked out of university. Mr Hamilton gave me somewhere to live. He’s a nice guy, when he wants to be.”

“Do not think you should be staying by yourself,” Felipe said, quietly, concentrating on his coffee. If there was nobody here, that made him the responsible one. He could go and find her boss – if he was a nice guy maybe he would be able to help – but it didn’t seem like the option Lucy would go for.

“I’m fine,” Lucy said, quietly, focusing on pouring just the right amount of milk into her drink. “I’m not going to do anything stupid, if that’s what you think.”

“Do not really know what to think,” Felipe said. All of a sudden it was too warm in there, and he pulled off the thick jacket and hat. Lucy still hadn’t taken her eyes of the drink, and Felipe took the chance to watch her a little, trying to work out how she was feeling. She definitely looked better than she had done at the train station and, now they were inside, she wasn’t shaking. Maybe it would be ok to leave her. He’d done his bit. If he went around helping every upset person he saw at the train station, he wouldn’t have enough time to do anything else. “Sure you’re ok?”

“I don’t feel like I did,” Lucy said, setting the drink down on the table and glancing up at him. “If that makes sense. I think maybe I can cope. When I was there I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do but… I don’t know what I’m going to do now, but I know that’s not the right thing to do.”

She gave him another small smile, as if in apology. Felipe nodded, still struggling to work out what to do.

“Do you mind if I use your bathroom?”

Lucy gave a small laugh, then led Felipe further into the flat to show him the bathroom. It was as beautiful and expensive looking as the rest of the flat. The lock was twisted shut and he sat on the edge of the bath, pushing his eyes shut and trying to calm down There was no way he could just leave the girl, was there? What kind of a person would that make him? Just because she said she was ok, didn’t mean she actually _was_. He said he was ok all the time and he very rarely was but… No. There wasn’t much more he could do to her. He’d brought her home, he’d sat with her a little while. And if she said she was ok, she probably just wanted to be left alone. That was what Felipe wanted when he said he was ok. He would leave the girl here. Maybe he would come and check up on her at some point tomorrow or the day after, but right now he just needed to let her calm down. Right?

“Your phone rang whilst you were in there,” Lucy said from the sofa where she was sipping her tea when he emerged from the bathroom, doing his best to pretend he was coping as well as she seemed to be. “I didn’t answer it. I didn’t think you’d want me to.”

She gestured to where she’d hung up Felipe’s jacket, and he found the phone inside.

 _“Hello, I’m calling for Mr Massa. It’s Mr Smedley,_ _Felipinho_ _’s teacher. I hope there isn’t an emergency or anything, but could you let the school know how much later you think you’re going to be? I’m looking after Felipinho until you get here. He’s fine, but would you be able to make it here as quickly as possible? I was also wondering if we could have a chat when you get here as well. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine. It’s just about Felipinho’s progress. I’ll speak to you when you get here.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I worry about this chapter, so let me know what you think. Will *hopefully* be posting a second chapter today because this is a really slow start and the next chapter is a good one (relative to the others anyway) :) Hope you enjoyed it. If not sorry.


	5. The teacher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rob knows how hard it is to juggle working full time and being a single parent. That's why he wants to have this chat with Felipe. That and Felipinho's falling behind in his reading. It has absolutely nothing to do with the fact Felipinho is one of the most adorable children Rob has ever taught. Or anything to do with the fact his dad's pretty adorable too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah ha! See, two chapters in one day (I know, it's a miracle). Hope you enjoy.

Rob Smedley watched Felipinho sat over the table in the corner with his crayons whilst Rob pretended to look through homework journals. It was almost half an hour since the end of school and all the other children had been picked up or were tucked away in after school activities, leaving the classroom in a blissful silence that Rob sometime forgot existed during school hours.

There was a frantic knock at the door and then Felipe Massa burst in.

Having favourites was against some unwritten rule, Rob knew, but he was yet to find a teacher that didn’t admit that Felipinho Massa was adorable, and it was easy to see where the child got that from. Felipe was breathless when he burst into the room, at first finding it empty, then spotting Rob sat at the desk. Rob tried to contain the smile that was already making his cheeks ache and waved the parent over.

“Hi, I’m Felipinho’s dad,” Felipe said, hurrying over. “I’m sorry I’m late. Was just a hectic day at work.”

“Rob Smedley, Felipinho’s teacher and progress tutor,” Rob said, standing to shake Felipe’s hand. “Do you want to sit down?”

Felipe frowned and sat on the edge of the nearest table. Rob perched on the edge of his own desk and clasped his hands together, doing his best to appear welcoming. Felipe still looked worried, though.

“Where is my son then?”

“Hey, Felipinho, look who’s here,” Rob called to the child, who hadn’t moved from his drawings. Felipinho looked up, gave his father a thumbs up and a dazed smile, then turned quickly back to his paper. He’d promised his teacher he would let the adults talk and Rob was glad the child was keeping his word. “Mr Massa, I was wondering if I could talk to you. Like I said, I’m Felipinho’s progress tutor, but I don’t think I have ever seen you at a parent’s evening.”

“Yeah, has always been kind of busy, you know?” Felipe shifted uncertainly on the table.

“Do you want have that chat now?” Rob asked. “There are some…” He glanced over at Felipinho, then lowered his voice. “ _Concerns_.”

Felipe glanced over at his son too, the worry clear on his face. “What concerns?”

“It’s not anything too bad,” Rob said quickly. “In year one we start to get into more academic skills: reading, writing, maths. Felipinho shows signs of being a high achiever, but his reading and writing has fallen behind what we were expecting at the beginning of the year. How often do you read with him at home?”

“How… often?”

It was clear to Rob the parent’s mind was elsewhere. “I know it’s been a hard year for you.”

“You _what_?” Felipe snapped, defensively.

Rob held up his hands. Wrong thing to say. “I didn’t mean it in a bad way. Children notice things, Mr Massa. More than either of us will ever know, I think. Felipinho knows things have been difficult for you this past year. It has been for him as well.”

“He’s quiet a lot,” Felipe said, quiet himself. He glanced over at Felipinho, then back at Rob. “Keeps out of the way, you know? Is not that I tell him to do so. Does not seem to want to spend time with me.”

“He’s a wonderful child, Mr Massa,” Rob assured him. “A clever one. Sociable. Always has somebody to play with at play time. He’s getting on brilliantly in that respect.” Rob paused. He wasn’t sure if he was intruding or not, but he really couldn’t stand the look on Felipe’s face then. He shouldn’t have looked _sad_ , and Rob knew it all came back to whatever had happened last year. “Don’t blame yourself for what happened last year. I know it’s tough, being a single parent. Hang on a second.” Rob pushed himself off of the desk and rummaged in one of the drawers before finding a leaflet and handing it to Felipe. “I run a- well, it’s kind of like a support group I suppose, for single fathers in the area. I mean, there’s not many of us, less than half a dozen, but it’s nice. We meet on Saturdays, the address is on the leaflet. I mean, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I’d completely understand.”

Felipe peered down at the leaflet, black and white and printed on yellow paper, advertising _Fun for Fathers_. Rob couldn’t help the small smile that spread on his own face as one did on Felipe’s. _I’d completely understand_. That had to be the biggest lie he’d ever told. He’d been watching Felipe on the playground since he’d become Felipinho’s progress tutor, waiting for him to come to one of the many parents’ evenings they had dotted around the year. He felt like an idiot, having a school girl crush on a parent who, Rob was pretty sure, barely knew he even existed, but he couldn’t change that.

“We’re actually having a little party this weekend,” Rob said, hopefully. “It’s my daughter’s birthday. They’ll be a lot of kids there, though. I think she’s invited most of year four.”

The smile on Felipe’s face actually grew. “For sure, will see if we can make it. How old is she?”

“Nine,” Rob said, proudly.

“For sure, will hopefully be there,” Felipe said, standing. “Is there anything else need to talk about?”

“What? Oh – um…” Why had he completely forgotten how to think? Yes, there was something he needed to talk about, but could he remember that?

“My son?” Felipe prompted.

“Yes,” Rob said. “I mean, like I said, he’s a good kid. He’s really chatty and, when we’ve had new children join the class, he’s always the first one to make friends. I think if you just spent a couple of hours a week reading with him, he’d be back up to where we thought he would be at the beginning of the year.”

Felipe’s smile grew. He glanced over at Felipinho, who seemed to have noticed they were talking about him. The child was hunched close to the paper but Rob knew he was smiling. He always knew when people were speaking about him and so often had a small smile on his face when it happened. Rob got the impression he knew how adorable he was. He would be trouble when he got older.

“He’s alright though?” Felipe asked. “Sometimes I worry… with just me…”

“He is absolutely fine,” Rob said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was another chapter I was worried about, so any feedback would be great (especially if you've spotted a spelling mistake). Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for sticking with the story this long.


	6. The Security Breech

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy's appearance at the Eggplant Press head quarters has a few people on edge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the nice comments. They made me really happy. Look forward to your thoughts (even if you think it could do some work or there's something you don't like, I want to know). Anyway, enjoy.

_We are very sorry you weren’t one hundred per cent happy with your gift set. Our choice of colour for tissue paper was in no way related to the colour mood wheel that can be found on our website. Please assure your partner on our behalf that no bad karma will come to her due to the two unrelated products._

Jenson forwarded the email to Jessica, hoping she was going to be pleased with this reaction. She got her kicks in strange ways, but that was why he loved her.

The door swung open and Jenson quickly pulled his feet off of the desk. He couldn’t moan at Mark or Fernando for being unprofessional if they caught him like that. But the newcomer wasn’t one of the writers. A girl in a smart blouse and skirt stood awkwardly just inside the building, holding a small bouquet of flowers.

“Hi,” she said, quietly.

“Hello, what are you doing here?” Jenson asked, too confused to be concerned about seeming rude. The girl was probably lost. Although, if Jenson was lost around here, Eggplant Press head-quarters wasn’t the first place he would ask for directions from.

“I’m looking for… Felipe,” the girl said slowly. “I think he works here. He… did something nice for me yesterday. I wanted to say thank you.” She lifted the flowers in explanation.

“He’s not in yet,” Jenson said, cautiously. “But if you put them here, I’ll pass them on to him when he gets in.”

“Thank you,” the girl said, nervously approaching and putting the flowers down on the desk.

Jenson picked them up and studied the bouquet. They were pretty good. They’d probably cost a bit. “Have you got a name?”

There was no answer. Jenson looked up to find the girl had frozen, staring at a man who had just emerged from the main corridor. He’d also frozen, and was staring at the girl.

“You off now, Seb?” Jenson asked, trying to provoke movement into the room again. Sebastian Vettel glanced quickly over at Jenson, as if just remembering he was there, then gave a small nod and turned back to the girl.

“Not a word to Lewis, ok?” Sebastian said, dragging her with him as they left the building.

Jenson frowned and settled back into his chair.

He didn’t like Sebastian. He didn’t like how he popped up and about, distracting Kimi, but Kimi had been coping well enough with it for however long the pair had been seeing each other, and Jenson had done the background check on Sebastian himself. That was the rule with people involved in Eggplant Press. Jenson always did the background check on all their clients, whether they came to see Kimi or Mark and Fernando.

Which was why the girl had Jenson on edge.

Before Jenson could do anything about it, though, the phone started ringing.

“Hello, Eggplant Press. This is Jenson Button speaking. How may I help you?”

“I’ve seen something,” the caller said. “Nobody believes me, but I’ve got evidence. I can prove it.”

“Seen what? Evidence of what?”

 _Here we go again_ , he thought, making notes on what the nutter was claiming he had seen. Five minutes into the conversation, Jenson had half zoned out, still picking out the information he needed, but now also skimming through the list Jessica had sent him of things to complain about.

The door opened again and Jenson looked up, still making “uh hu” noises down the phone. Felipe gave him a small smile and a wave and made to slide away down the corridor but Jenson held up a hand and he stopped.

Felipe bit his lip and, whilst the secretary continued to drag the necessary information out of the potential client, he slid into one of the chairs on the other side of the room, trying to work out what he had done wrong this time.

Jenson put the phone down with a sigh. He didn’t like dealing with those kind of weirdoes. Of all the covers they could have chosen, Kimi had chosen a conspiracy theory blog, and Jenson hated it. He forced a smile and lifted the flowers. “For you.”

“Oh, Jenson, you shouldn’t have,” Felipe said in mock surprise. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“They’re not from me,” Jenson said, leaning back in his chair. “Some girl came in to say thank you.”

“Some girl?” Felipe frowned, confused. “Oh! Lucy?”

“She didn’t leave a name,” Jenson said. “Felipe, who was she?”

“Lucy?” Felipe asked. “She… I… found her yesterday.”

“And how did she find this place?” Jenson asked.

Felipe groaned, finally realising what he had done wrong. “I was taking her home, Jenson. She was really upset and I couldn’t leave her alone.”

“That’s _dangerous_ ,” Jenson hissed. Why did nobody here take the whole thing seriously? “She could have been anybody.”

“Tried to take her own life, yesterday,” Felipe said. “I could not leave her alone.”

Jenson sighed. “Tell me what you know about her. I’ll see if I need to see Kimi about this.”

 

“Look at you two,” Lewis cooed as Sebastian and Lucy came into the office together. “Coming to work together. You’re finally getting on.”

“Saw Lucy on the way in,” Sebastian said coldly, glaring at his assistant when Lewis had his back turned. “She looked like she needed a lift.”

“Yeah, sure,” Lewis smirked. “Have a good day off yesterday?”

“Um, yeah,” Lucy said quietly. “It was… alright, I suppose.”

“Good,” Lewis said. “I have a meeting in half an hour. Sebastian, can you call a cab?”

The two assistants quickly got to work on making their boss’ life as easy as possible, collecting together all the files he would need for the meeting that Sebastian had set up for him. It would probably have been easier for Sebastian to have taken the meeting himself, as he’d done most of the work on the product it was concerning, but Lewis Hamilton was the face of the organisation and Lewis Hamilton needed to take the meeting.

Neither of them said anything about Eggplant Press. They hadn’t spoken in the car, either. Sebastian’s mind was racing. He knew how careful Kimi was when it came to his work. He’d been through the intense scrutiny of Jenson Button and felt like he had barely managed to pass himself. And he couldn’t imagine _what_ she was doing there. People went to Eggplant Press for two reasons, and Lucy didn’t come across to him as a conspiracy theory enthusiastic. Of course, there were some exceptions, like him. But he was pretty sure there wasn’t an opening for his kind of ‘position’ at the head-quarters.

Lucy was trying to kill somebody.

Kimi never spoke to him about clients and Sebastian was thankful for that, but he liked to think that, if anybody ever asked him to kill _him_ , Kimi would tell him. It just seemed like common curtsey to Sebastian.

“Right, I’m off,” Lewis said. “Please make sure there’s a cab waiting for me when I’m finished, Sebastian. I do _not_ want to be waiting on the street on _that_ side of town.”

“Yes sir,” Sebastian said, trying to keep the weariness from his voice. He really needed a coffee.

When Lewis left, Sebastian fell down into his seat at his desk and tried to get some work done. They were pushing a new product, one Lewis himself had taken a shining to so it needed to be a big success.

“Lucy, can you get me some coffee,” he muttered, unable to focus on the spreadsheet in front of him. He wanted to phone Kimi, to find out why his assistant had been at a hit man’s office, but he knew Kimi was working today, and was doing his best to not piss him off.

After a few minutes, Sebastian looked up to find Lucy was sat at her own desk, mug in one hand, tapping at her keyboard with the other.

“Lucy?”

“I’m not your skivvy, Sebastian,” Lucy snapped, not looking up from her computer.

“You’re my assistant,” Sebastian said, confused.

“I _assist_ you,” Lucy hissed. “I don’t work here to make you coffee.”

“Coffee would be very helpful right now,” Sebastian pointed out, a small smirk on his face. Winding the teenager up had to be the best part of this job. And there was nothing she could do about it. Complaining to Lewis would get her nowhere, seeing as Sebastian had made himself essential to their boss’ success. The only other real option was quitting, and that would just make her homeless and jobless. No, Lucy was stuck here, with him-

Unless she had tried to hire a hit man to get rid of him.

“Here,” Lucy snapped, making Sebastian jumped. He hadn’t even realised his assistant had left her desk, and now she was trying to hand him a mug of coffee. At least, it looked like coffee. And it smelled like coffee.

“What were you doing at Eggplant Press?” Sebastian cried, trying not to panic and failing miserably.

“At what?”

“Eggplant Press,” Sebastian repeated, taking the coffee from her and slamming it down on the desk so hard the drink sloshed over the sides and onto his hands. He jumped up, the boiling hot drink scolding his hand and ran to the toilets to wash it off. Maybe it was just hot or maybe it was made with acid or something.

“What’s wrong with you?” Lucy asked, following Sebastian into the toilets and watching as he washed the coffee from his hand.

“You’re trying to kill me!” Sebastian cried before he could stop himself. His hand seemed to be ok. Maybe it was just hot coffee.

Lucy frowned, feigning confusion. It didn’t suit her, Sebastian thought. “What are you talking about? Sebastian, are you ok?”

“Why were you at Eggplant Press?” he spat.

“Right, that’s it, I’m phoning a doctor,” Lucy said, spinning on her heels to leave the bathroom. Sebastian rushed after her. He wasn’t ill. And she wasn’t going to make him out to be crazy. He’d known. He’d _known_ there was something suspicious about the girl. She was trying to kill him. She was trying to destroy everything he’d worked for to make Lewis Hamilton a great brand. “Sebastian. What. Is. Wrong?”

“Why were you at Eggplant Press?” he asked, again. If he could just get her to admit to it, then he could figure out a way to stop this. Lewis was useless, oblivious to everything that happened in the real world, but maybe he could go to see Kimi. Kimi would help him.

“Sebastian, I have no idea what Eggplant Press is,” Lucy said, slowly, as if she were speaking to a child who didn’t understand the meaning of the word no.

“Of course you do! Why else would you have been there today?” Sebastian snapped. Lucy fell silent and dropped her gaze to the floor. Sebastian frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“I went to see the driver,” Lucy said. All her arrogance was gone, and she really looked like the distressed teenager she was supposed to be. “He gave me a lift yesterday. I wanted to say thank you.”

“A lift?” Sebastian asked, sceptically. He knew Lucy better than to believe this act. “Where to?”

“That’s nothing to do with you,” Lucy spat, the defences back up, before marching to her desk. Sebastian followed her, swiping her hands away from the keyboard when she went to ignore him. “Sebastian? Sebastian will you just stop?” Lucy snapped, tears in her eyes. She was a pretty good actor, he’d give her that.

Sebastian bit his lip and fixed his coldest glare on her. “I’m going to find out what is going on. And you better hope you’re not around when I do.”

 


	7. The Iceman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The real business of Eggplant Press is something Kimi has found he's quite good at.

Some days Kimi really enjoyed his job. After all the painstaking surveillance, after making sure everything was completely covered, it was time for the fun. Time to do what he had proven time and time again he did best.

He looked down at the man between his boot and the tarmac, the drip stuck into his arm keeping the victim awake long after he would usually have passed out. This one deserved the pain. This one deserved to know exactly what was going on.

The ‘victim’ looked back up at him with wide eyes, waiting.

Kimi cocked his head.

Did he know?

Kimi always wondered if they knew what was waiting for them. With some, it was obvious. The way they begged, as if there was possibly any chance this could end any other way. Some of them, even at this point, still had _hope_. This one… this one, Kimi wasn’t so sure. He’d stopped struggling. Maybe he’d given in. What Kimi knew – what he knew without any shadow of a doubt – was that the man was scared.

This was good enough for Kimi.

Death was quick. One slit across the throat, blood stopped from spraying over his still pristine white shirt with the rag that quickly replaced the knife, and that was it. Job done. He crouched on the floor, watching the light slowly fade from the hits eyes until the frantic rising and falling of his chest stopped, then he stood. Disposal of the body was already organised. A quick text sorted that problem, but, once the text was sent, he noticed the flashing envelope in the top corner of the screen.

Sebastian – _Hi Kimi, Can you give me a call when you can, please? It’s kind of important. Love you_ _J_ _xxx_

Sebastian – _Hi! I know you’re busy right now. I just want to let you know I need to speak to you. It really is important. Love you xxx_

Sebastian – _Kimi. It is really really really important. I think somebody is trying to kill me. Please phone back. Straight away._

Sebastian – _Please, Kimi. There’s nothing else I can do. I swear, this isn’t like last time. Please, just phone me back. I love you. Xxx_

Kimi rolled his eyes and smiled as he made his way back to where the car was waiting for him. Sebastian had a habit of over reacting, trying to steal Kimi’s attention, he thought. It worked, usually, and, even though Kimi put his phone away without replying to any of the messages, he knew he’d end up replying. As all he had to look forward to for the rest of the day was a long train ride and then a night of watching his next hit, he knew he’d succumb, if not out of worry then boredom.

Felipe drove Kimi to the train station, where he would travel onwards to get started on the surveillance. Without saying a word to the driver, Kimi got out of the car, taking a deep breath of the cool air before disappearing into the deserted train station.

He liked this place. It was quiet. Secure. He always used the neglected second train station the city offered rather than the chaotic cattle farm in the city centre. Though crowds sometimes held safety, they also held endless amounts of threats, and he didn’t like that. Here, Kimi knew the staff and the few frequent users or the station – more than they knew themselves – and felt comfortable sat, just waiting for the train, even if he was still on high alert.

But there was nothing to worry about. There never was. The train arrived – a little late, but nothing to cause concern – and Kimi boarded. He took an abandoned newspaper from one of the spare seats. He sat down. He acted normal.

The news was boring. War in this country. Famine in another. Things he knew he should care about but just didn’t. As he came to the business pages, though, Kimi’s interest spiked. He spotted a face he knew.

The picture wasn’t _of_ Sebastian, but his boyfriend’s beam was caught in the shot of the young ‘entrepreneur’ Lewis Hamilton celebrating another success. The brand – arrogantly named after the face of the company, Kimi always said - had now jumped into the top ten companies based in the city. He already knew that, of course. Sebastian had been eager to inform him of their success – keen to celebrate.

Kimi wasn’t sure if he liked his boyfriend’s face in the paper, but he knew there was no way anybody could use that to link the youngster to him. There was no mention of him, or even Sebastian, in the article. And it was good to see him successful at last. When they’d first met, Sebastian had been ready to give it all up, and seeing him happy after all Kimi had seen him go through pulled a smile onto his usually ice cold face.

He sat back in the chair, watching the world pass him, content that everything was on its way up – for both of them.

 

“Kimi, I am scared,” Sebastian said, curing up on the sofa with the TV on low volume in the background. “When are you back?”

“Tomorrow afternoon, I promise,” Kimi said down the phone. He leaned over to check the view from the window, but there was no change. “Nobody’s going to hurt you, Seb.”

“Yeah, but you don’t _know_ that,” Sebastian said. Kimi could hear he was on the verge of crying and it made his stomach jerk.

“Of course I do,” Kimi said softly, wishing he was curled up on the sofa with Sebastian instead of stuck in some flea infested hotel halfway across the country. “Why would anybody possibly want to hurt you?”

“Because I’m successful now?” Sebastian mumbled, his eyes closed. “I mean, we are. The company is. She wants to kill me and take over for Lewis. Then she’ll run it into the ground or sell all the plans or something.”

“Calm down,” Kimi cooed. “This is your assistant, right? You said she was just a student. I am pretty sure she’s not up to anything. You said she couldn’t even manage to stay at university.”

“Murderers don’t look like murderers,” Sebastian said. “You told me that.”

Kimi sighed. If he was honest, he was glad Sebastian listened when he spoke. Sometimes it didn’t seem that way. “I’ll have Jenson look into her, ok?” he said, hoping that would calm him down. “Will that make you feel better?”

“ _You’d_ make me feel better,” Sebastian said.

“Tomorrow afternoon,” Kimi chuckled. He peered out of the window again. Movement! There was movement in the flat across the road. Time to get to work. “Look, Seb. I’m going to have to go. I’m supposed to be working.”

“Text me before you go to sleep, alright?” Sebastian said.

“Promise,” Kimi said, already on his way out of the hotel room. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Sebastian said. His smile fell when he heard Kimi hang up. He sighed and pulled the phone away from his ear to look at the display. He was going to be ok. Everything was going to be ok.

Sebastian rolled onto his stomach and barely managed to begin a scream before a rag was stuffed into his mouth.

 

Kimi followed the next victim for two hours as he wondered in and out of bars. The kid – and he was just a kid, younger than Sebastian – seemed to manage to stay sober the entire time. He was a popular man, well known and well liked in the bars he visited. No matter how closely Kimi watched him, he didn’t see where the youngster put the drinks he was passed, but he was definitely didn’t drink them. The night ended with the kid safely back in his flat, walked home by a couple of friends who were significantly less sober than the hit. That was it.

 _This is going to be easy_ , Kimi thought, collapsing onto the bed. He hadn’t had so much luck – or he didn’t want as much luck - in making his drinks disappear and staying sober, and had just enough energy left in him to text Sebastian before he let himself fall into sleep.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day again. I'm getting pretty good at this, getting it down anyway. Hope you enjoyed. :)


	8. The mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stuff happens in this chapter. Felipe finds out the truth about the worst day of his life. Sebastian's disappearance has a lot of people worried.

“Where’s Sebastian?” Lewis asked when Lucy brought him his morning tea.

“I don’t know,” Lucy admitted, scurrying back to her desk. She’d seen Lewis angry and she didn’t like it. The first assistant’s desk caught her eye as she passed, but she quickly looked away. “Maybe he’s ill.”

Lewis frowned, his eyes on the desk as if his assistant may magically appear if he concentrated hard enough. Sebastian wasn’t just _ill_. He hadn’t been _ill_ in over three year. But, then again, he hadn’t been late in all that time, either, and he definitely wasn’t here. Lewis absent mindedly clicked through the schedule Sebastian had set up for him, trying to distract himself, but shook his head. This was useless.

“I’m just going to phone…”

 

“Alright, what’s her name?” Jenson asked, waving at Mark and Fernando as they passed through to their office. “Lucy Windford. Yeah, he’s probably just being paranoid but – hang on. _Windford_?”

“Yeah?” Kimi said, confused. It was almost eleven in the morning and there was still no movement from across the street. Maybe the kid had been in a worse state than he had thought last night. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Nothing. I mean, nothing that I _know_ of,” Jenson said, carefully. “It’s just… she came around to the office yesterday.”

“What?”

“I… um… yeah.” Jenson knew this was going to cause him to panic. Nothing bad had come up about the girl so far. In fact, her background was remarkably easy to trace. School activities, grades, community newsletters. Her entire life seemed to be online. This was without a doubt the easiest person Jenson had ever traced and he didn’t like it.

“What was she doing at there?”

“Looking for Felipe,” Jenson said. “Look, just stay calm. I’m doing the background checks anyway. We can talk properly when you get back.”

He doubted that would calm Kimi down. In fact, he knew that wasn’t going to calm him down, so he hung up before he could start swearing, and got back to his research.

 

Lewis made his way up to Sebastian’s flat on the eighth floor of Victoria Towers. The publicity meetings that had been planned could wait. He’d been trying his assistant’s phone all morning and nothing. He didn’t like being ignored. If Sebastian hadn’t made it to work, then it was something serious, and Lewis wanted to know what.

The flat was empty when Lewis wandered in, the door unlocked.

“Seb?” he called, uncertainly. He peered around the familiar flat, unsurprised but worried when he found the place empty. “Fuck sake, man. You’ve got work to do.”

Sebastian’s phone blinked at him from the coffee table. That explained the unanswered calls…

That was… weird. Lewis had never seen Sebastian without his phone. He was always texting, emailing, organising meetings or researching new products. He didn’t even leave it on his desk when he went to the toilet. Something was very wrong here. Lewis was about to investigate the blinking light, but was distracted by a click that echoed around the empty flat as the door closed behind him. He spun around.

“Lucy?”

The teenager was stood with a worried frown on her face and a gun trained on Lewis. “I’m sorry, Mr Hamilton. It appears you may have stumbled into a bit of a mess.”

 

At the sound of the door opening, Sebastian’s breathing hitched. Behind the blindfold, he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm his breathing, but the ties around his wrist were cutting into his skin and every time he moved the pain in his side shot like electric through him and somebody was coming towards him so why the _hell_ should he calm down.

He was dragged up – it felt like up – and something flat was pressed against his ear.

“Speak.”

“I- I- I.”

“Seb?”

“Kimi? Oh my god, Kimi please- I don’t- I- Kimi, please.”

The phone was taken away again and Sebastian fell back to the floor. The blindfold slid up a little and he watched as a pair of shoes walked away from him.

“We’ll be in touch, Mr Räikkönen.”

 

Felipe had been having a relatively good day, up until the point he went to pick his boss up from the train station and an angry and panicking Kimi dragged him out of the car with no explanation, pushing him against the car.

“Who is she?”

“What?”

“That girl,” Kimi snarled. “Who is she and why did you bring her to Eggplant?”

“I- I- is just a kid, I don’t know,” Felipe said, desperately. “What is going on? Kimi?”

“Get in the car,” Kimi snapped, throwing him towards the door before actually _running_ to get into the passenger side. “Where does she live? Take me there. Now.”

Felipe did so without saying another word. There was no dealing with Kimi whilst he was in this state. What had Jenson found that was so bad? His mind was racing and he didn’t like it. The ideas got crazier and crazier and he wished desperately for Kimi to speak to distract him, but there was little chance of that.

He pulled to a stop in the Victoria Tower car park and waited for Kimi to get out, his mind still reeling. Kimi pulled Felipe out with him.

“Which flat?”

“I-I- Yes, know which flat. Can show you.”

“Go, now.”

Felipe led Kimi through an empty front lobby, feeling increasingly anxious. The doorman from earlier in the week was gone. He pressed the button for the fourth floor in the elevator and waited in uncomfortable silence beside Kimi as they waited for the lift door to open.

Something was wrong. This wasn’t about being paranoid. Kimi hated to be anything but ice cold and stone faced in public and if he was this angry then-

The lift doors opened with the mechanical ping, and Kimi was already dragging Felipe out when he spotted her.

Lucy was rushing down the corridor away from her flat, shaking almost as much as the first time Felipe had met her, but she froze instantly when she spotted them in the lift. Kimi was about to march past the girl when he remembered how Sebastian had described his assistant, then he stopped. He glanced down at Felipe, who was watching Lucy, and he knew he was right. The guilty look on Lucy’s face didn’t help.

“Where’s Sebastian?”

“I don’t know,” Lucy admitted, holding out her hands hopelessly. “I was hoping you might want to help me with that. Please, can we go somewhere so I can explain this properly? To my flat?”

“So you can ambush me?” Kimi asked.

“No, I- Do I look like I can attack you, Mr Räikkönen?” Lucy said. “Send Felipe ahead of you to make sure, if you’d like?”

Kimi looked between Felipe and Lucy, then shook his head. “I’ll believe you.”

Lucy sighed, relieved, but waited a couple of moments before she realised she was going to have to lead them to the flat. Felipe was quick to her side, which settled her a little, but she wasn’t sure why. Kimi was still behind her, and she didn’t like that, knowing what he could do…

“Tea?” Lucy asked, as soon as they were inside.

“Tell me what is going on,” Kimi snapped, grabbing hold of Lucy’s wrist. Felipe was frozen to the spot, still trying to figure out what Jenson had possibly said to make Kimi react like this.

“They’re trying to get to you, Mr Räikkönen,” Lucy said, not struggling under Kimi’s grip. “This has been in the making for almost a year. We thought we had more time to stop them, but apparently not.”

“ _Who_ , Windford?” Kimi snapped, his grip on the girl’s wrist tightening. But he already knew who. _Almost a year_.

“You killed one of their agents, Mr Räikkönen. What did you expect was going to happen?”

Lucy glanced over Kimi’s shoulder at Felipe, but it was clear the driver didn’t know. He had no idea what was going on here. Lucy was about to suggest that they discuss this somewhere privately when Kimi spoke.

“Michael was a security threat,” he said, Felipe being the last of his concerns now that Sebastian was missing.

“Michael?” Felipe asked, confused. Somewhere in the past three sentences, he’d must have made a mistake. “No. They’ve got this wrong. That was an accident. The train was going too fast. It was an accident.”

Kimi closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting go of Lucy’s wrist. Lucy watched as Felipe struggled to stand, his eyes unable to stay on either of them for very long. She shouldn’t have even mentioned Michael with him in the room. They had enough to deal with without this.

“Michael Shumacher was an agent working for the Nemo Scire Oportet,” she explained, struggling to stay emotionless and watch Felipe at the same time. “He came to Kimi with work, but I guess you knew that.”

Felipe was shaking his head, his back against the door. He looked up at his employer, trying to read something off of Kimi’s suddenly stony face. “Kimi, tell me the truth.”

“This is the truth,” Kimi said, quietly, turning away from the driver. “Jenson didn’t find out who he really was until it was too late. He was a security threat, so we sabotaged the train.”

There was a couple of seconds silence whilst things clicked into place in Felipe’s brain. They’d sabotaged a train. No, they’d sabotaged _Michael’s_ train.

“You killed him,” Felipe whispered, his eyes crawling the floor whilst he searched for another meaning to the words he was hearing,

“He was a security threat,” Kimi said, emotionlessly. “A spy. We couldn’t-“

“ _I_ was on that train,” Felipe whispered. “I could have died.”

“It was a risk we had to take,” Kimi said, still not looking at Felipe.

“A risk!” Felipe cried, grabbing Kimi and forcing him to look at him. Kimi just knocked him away and the driver stumbled back into the door. “I could have died. What about Felipinho? What about…?” Felipe slid to the floor, still shaking his head. This was wrong. It was a sick joke or they’d gone mad or… or something. Kimi wouldn’t have done this. Not to his own.

“I’m sorry, Felipe, but it had to happen,” Kimi said, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “That’s the past now. Windford?”

Lucy was across the room, out of the way, preparing three cups of tea. She looked up when her name was called. “Yes?”

“Who do you work for, and how are we getting Sebastian back?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here I was thinking this was going to be a happy story... Hopefully this all makes sense (or as much sense as it's supposed to make) :)


	9. The train crash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flash back!

“Tell him I love him,” Felipe said, again. He was worried he was annoying Michael but every time he looked up, his boyfriend was grinning stupidly at him and Felipe smiled sheepishly at the floor.

“He knows,” Fernando said on the other end of the phone.

“Yeah, but tell him,” Felipe said. It was the first time he had left Felipinho with anybody, other than school and a few hours on the weekend when it couldn’t be avoided.

“I’ll tell him when he wakes up, ok?” Fernando said, trying not to laugh.

“Make sure you do,” Felipe said. “And I’ll see him soon. Thanks for this again, Fernando.”

“It’s fine,” Fernando said. “I’ll tell him. See you on Monday.”

Felipe sighed as he hung up and Michael put his arm around him, holding him tighter.

“He will be fine,” he said, “Mark and Fernando will spoil him rotten and let him stay up past his bed time. He’ll be fine.”

“Know this,” Felipe said, curling into Michael a little as they waited for the train. It was a couple of hours back to Michael’s house and, once he’d let himself be assured that Felipinho was going to be ok, Felipe was excited for the weekend. Just the two of them for the entire two days.

He still had no idea how they had wound up like this. How _he_ had wound up like this. The idea that Michael would chose somebody like him was completely absurd alone, without throwing a toddler into the mix. But Michael loved Felipinho. And Michael loved him. And that thought made Felipe’s heart swell so much it hurt. “This weekend will be perfect.”

“Hmmm,” Michael agreed. When Felipe looked up, he found the German’s eyes closed. He grinned.

“Are you going to fall asleep on train?”

“Maybe,” Michael said, his eyes still closed.

 

He didn’t fall asleep on the train. Michael gazed out of the window, watching the familiar sights whizz past whilst Felipe entertained him the stories he made up whilst he drove clients about the city. He couldn’t help laughing at a few of them, and at the grin that completely consumed Felipe’s face when he made Michael laugh. It would be a little worrying how close Felipe came to the reality a few times if Michael wasn’t certain that Felipe had as much belief in his theories as he did the UFO articles Eggplant Press blogged.

About half an hour into the journey - whilst Felipe was in the middle of a story Michael had heard a few times before, but always had an alternate ending more absurd, apparently crazier, than the last - Michael’s face fell. His lover’s voice faded into the background. There was something not right here and he wasn’t quite sure what.

“Come on,” he said, standing and holding out his hand for Felipe to do the same.

Felipe frowned up at him, then around the carriage, looking for the source of Michael’s concern. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing,” Michael lied, taking Felipe’s hand in his and pulling him up. He didn’t let go as he led Felipe through the carriages towards the back of the train. His instincts were screaming at him to get out, but he pushed them down and continued through the train. He needed to protect Felipe first.

“Are worrying me now,” Felipe said, still puzzled as he let himself be pulled through carriage after carriage. “What is wrong?”

“Nothing,” Michael said again as they reached the final carriage. The small space was almost full, but he managed to find a seat free and sat Felipe in it. Another quick scan of the carriage confirmed that there wasn’t another free chair. He bit his lip, considering removing another passenger but he knew he didn’t have much time. He crouched down in the isle, waiting.

“Michael, are being silly now,” Felipe teased, half-heartedly. He could see this was serious, but it didn’t make any sense and maybe it wasn’t as bad as Michael was making it out to be.

“I love you,” Michael said, quietly, his breath catching when he realised there was so much he needed to explain, so much he wanted to do. “Remember that, ok?”

 

_“Daddy squeezed my hand. Felt it. Uncle Fernando, I felt it.”_

_“Shush, Felipinho. Come on, I think it’s time you have a nap.”_

_“But I_ felt _him, Uncle Fernando.”_

Felipe felt the hand begin to slide out of his and held it tighter, giving a little tug when the hand stopped.

_“Daddy?”_

_“Felipe? Mark! Mark, go and get a nurse or something. It’s ok Felipe, you’re ok.”_

Felipe felt as if he hadn’t had a drink for weeks when he spoke. Fernando kept handing him the glass of water, poking the straw towards him, as if that would help. His head felt like gravy and he was scared if he moved too much his brain might fall out of his ears. The bandages around his head were a little tight, but whenever he complained about it, Fernando would tell him it was for the best, and he had to deal with it.

Felipinho was mostly concerned with why he couldn’t bounce on the bed yet. He’d been staying with Fernando and Mark and spent the first half an hour of his father’s wakefulness informing him of all the times Mark had told him to _not tell Daddy_. It made Felipe smile, but he knew something was missing and Fernando could see it in his eyes.

“What happened?” he asked, once Mark had taken a protesting Felipinho to find some lunch.

“The train was going too fast and derailed when it went around a corner,” Fernando said, quietly. “You hit your head. Have been under for a couple of days now. The nurses said it was a miracle you lived. The train was such a wreck. Was a miracle anybody lived. I’m sorry.”

“And Michael?” Felipe asked, hopefully.

Fernando just shook his head. Everything he’d prepared, all the ways he and Mark had discussed telling him over the few short days, disappeared from his mind. There was nothing he could say.

“No. No, Fernando, please.”

“He was dead when the fire crew got to him,” Fernando croaked. He didn’t want to tell him like that. That hadn’t been what he wanted to say. “I’m sorry, Felipe. There was nothing anybody could do.”

Felipe stared up at the ceiling, trying to stop the world from spinning, but it wasn’t working. The bandage around his head was way too tight and if somebody didn’t loosen it right now, he thought his head might collapse. Maybe it was because it was so loud. Everything was too loud. The ticking and the beeping. Why did he need all this anyway? The bandage was becoming unbearable and he wanted nothing more than to tug it off.

Well, that was a lie. He knew what he wanted more than that. What he wanted but he couldn’t have. And that thought shocked him into stillness.

Michael was gone.

“But…” But what? What had he _just_ said, Felipe? There was no ifs. There was no buts. There was nothing. No hope.

His mind was a blur of noise and Felipe struggled to find one single thought to focus on. There were too many questions. Too many things that didn’t make any sense. “Does Felipinho know?”

Fernando shook his head. “We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t want to tell him, in case he thought…” Fernando nodded down at him, unable to admit that he’d thought his friend was going to die. “I can tell him, if you’d like. If that would make it easier. Just did not want to scare him.”

“I- I should do it,” Felipe whispered, still not taking his eyes off the ceiling.

Michael was gone.

He knew he should be crying, but he wasn’t. He was just numb. Maybe he was pretending he didn’t understand. But he did. He definitely understood what Fernando was trying to tell him, but he just wasn’t able to react.

“He- It doesn’t- They said he didn’t suffer,” Fernando said, knowing that didn’t matter. “I’m- we’re really sorry.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Felipe whispered, squeezing his eyes shut, waiting for the right words to come. “Has happened now. Is nothing you can do now.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look! Another happy chapter! Hope this answered at least one question. More answers (and maybe some more questions) are on there way. :)


	10. The Strategist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimi has some questions that need answering and Lucy goes to a friend to help Kimi.

“We’ve been trying to stop the NSO before they got to you,” Lucy explained over tea, which only she was drinking. “It’s been slow progress. The fact we haven’t yet been able to pass your security checks as clients hasn’t really helped. We’d no idea where to find you or if you even knew they were still after you.”

Kimi nodded calmly, watching the girl closely. Of course he’d known they were after him, hence the heightened security around Eggplant Press. Obviously that hadn’t worked.

“How did they find out about Sebastian?” he asked.

“We’re not sure,” Lucy admitted. “We only stumbled across it by accident a couple of weeks before I started working for Lewis Hamilton.”

“Stumbled across it?”

Lucy sighed and put down her tea. Why was she the one who was going to have to tell Kimi Räikkönen lots of things that were going to make him angry?

“We had recording equipment planted on Sebastian and Lewis to make sure it was a safe cover for me,” she said. “When we found out, we did consider using him, but there were too many things that could go wrong. All we really wanted to do was locate Eggplant Press head-quarters.”

She glanced over at Felipe. He hadn’t said anything since he’d found out the truth. He hadn’t even moved from his seat on the floor by the door. The tea in his hand had his full attention, and Lucy thought it was probably safer to leave him like that. It had definitely been a mistake to tell him, but Kimi was right. That was the past now.

“You didn’t think to come to me sooner?” Kimi said, snapping her attention back onto him.

“With all due respect, Mr Räikkönen, we weren’t _able_ to contact you,” Lucy said. “The only way we could was through Jenson Button, and we couldn’t be sure how secure that would be.”

It had been painstakingly slow to begin with. Even locating the city had been hard enough, and they wouldn’t have been able to do that if Kimi hadn’t insisted on using the same train station, the one Michael and Felipe had boarded at on the day Michael had died. That too was chance, an intern thinking _I wonder if this has any significance_ and monitoring the CCTV footage at the station for a couple of weeks. That had given them the city, and Felipe. Following the car hadn’t worked, and had left a couple of agents in a serious condition in hospital. So they’d had to make direct contact.

“At the train station,” Felipe said, quietly, making Lucy jump. “You was not going to kill yourself, were you?”

Lucy shook her head, not daring to look at the driver. “It was the only way we could think of. We wouldn’t have done it if we could think of any other way.”

Felipe nodded. He was too numb to do anything else. He remembered this feeling, and he didn’t like it.

“So, what were you planning on doing next?” Kimi asked.

“We thought we would have more time,” Lucy said, again, putting her tea down on the coffee table. “I was just supposed to find out where you were based and give that information over. I don’t know what they were planning on doing next. You would have to ask the strategist.”

“Who?”

“Don’t worry,” Lucy said, with a small smile. “You’ve already met him.”

 

Daniel was hunched over the table as he had been all morning, trying to plan their next move, when the phone call came in. He was prepared to ignore it, having already had enough stick from too many people for being too slow on their approach, when he saw the caller ID. Maybe Lucy had decided she needed to inform him of Sebastian Vettel’s disappearance as well. Why not? Everybody else on the planet had felt the need to call him about it. He knew he shouldn’t have been angry. They were all just panicking, just like him, and he was supposed to hold the answers. But he didn’t. And there was nothing he could do about that whilst they phoned him every fifteen seconds.

He ignored the call and got back to work.

The NSO had moved too fast. He’d said they should have done something with Sebastian as soon as they found out he was involved but _no_.

_There are too many things that can go wrong with that._

_The NSO will never find out about him._

_If we mess with Vettel,_ _Räikkönen_ _will find out._

Daniel took a deep breath and looked over the strategies again. The original plan wasn’t doomed yet. As long as nothing else went wrong, this could still work. As long as Kimi didn’t know they were involved, they could still-

Lucy was phoning again.

He was going to have to answer it.

“If you’re phoning to tell me- what? Oh, _Lucy_. How- Oh, does it even- What? You can’t. _Here_. But your cover? Wait, _how_ far away are you? No don’t- Don’t- Hello?”

“Daniel Ricciardo?” Kimi asked. Daniel shivered at the sound of his voice and backed away from the table a little.

“Speaking,” he said, glancing out of the window at the cheap hotel across the street. He knew Kimi wasn’t there anymore, he’d watched the hit man leave that morning, but he’d had to check every couple of hours, just to be sure. He hadn’t liked that part of the plan, but it had been necessary. Then.

“I understand you’re familiar with my work,” Kimi said.

“I’m quite a…um… fan of it yes, Mr Räikkönen,” Daniel admitted.

“Then you know what I am capable of,” Kimi said. “And what I am going to do to you if Sebastian Vettel is hurt in anyway.”

“But- but it wasn’t-“

“I am on my way now,” Kimi said. “And by the time I get there, I want you to have an idea in that head of yours how you’re going to get my boyfriend back, ok?”

“Yes, Mr Räikkönen.”

“Good.”

Kimi hung up without handing the phone back to Lucy. Daniel stared at the now useless device for a few seconds before diving back into his chair. There had to be something. _Anything_.

Deep breath.

He still had a couple of options open, but those would close depending on what the NSO did and how quickly they did it. And depending on who else knew about what was really going on. And on what he got clearance for. There were too many variables. He didn’t like it. What was the point in having a plan if nobody stuck to it?

Deep breath.

This was Daniel’ first big assignment as strategist and he couldn’t screw it up. He just needed to calm down. Forget that he wasn’t actually supposed to have this job. Forget that they had only given it him because he was the only one that would take it. He could do this. They wouldn’t have given it to him if they thought he couldn’t.

Slowly, Daniel began to readjust his plan to deal with the latest developments. That was what he was good at: working with little hope and getting results. What could loosely be described as a plan was formed and, whist he knew it was still going to be tricky and he really didn’t like it, it was the best he could do. There were holes, and he knew Kimi was going to pick them out, but he had gotten something together, and it _could_ work.

 

Lucy didn’t have to lead Kimi up to Daniel’s flat when they reached the building Kimi had only stopped watching that morning, and Kimi didn’t have to knock the door before Daniel had it open and pulled him inside. Daniel was shaking his hand before Kimi could stop him, but backed away quickly when Kimi pulled his hand away.

“Mr Räikkönen,” Lucy said, with a small smile. “Daniel Ricciardo, the strategist.”

Kimi frowned. On closer inspection, he knew he had been right in his assessment the day before. The guy was barely old enough to be considered an adult, with a stupid grin on his face and curly brown hair that didn’t look like it even wanted to stay on his head making him look even younger.

“Tell me what is going on,” Kimi said.

Daniel ran his hands through his hair again, smiling out of nervousness, and sat down in a chair at the table before he could trip over his bouncing feet, whilst Lucy busied herself in making tea – her speciality. He was almost ninety seven per cent sure it was her fault Kimi had found out, but she had been one of the few people who was available to help him.

“How much had Lucy told you?” he asked.

“Let’s just assume nothing and go from there,” Kimi said.

Daniel groaned again and leaned back in the chair. “Lucy and I work for a small organisation called… let’s not go into what it’s called. When you were working with Michael Schumacher, you gathered some intelligence which we were – are - interested in. You might not realise how important that intelligence is, but we do. Not a lot is known about NSO, not even to us, and any information possible needs to be obtained. We were trying to find ways to get that information when the train incident occurred. We had no idea how the NSO were going to react to that, so we backed off for a while. Once it was obvious they were working against you, I became the head strategist – sort of – and we worked on getting inside Eggplant Press. It was going pretty well, up until this morning.”

“That wouldn’t have gone well if I’d killed you,” Kimi pointed out. “Was you being on my hit list part of the plan?”

“Yes, actually,” Daniel said, trying not to sound cocky. “But that plan’s scrapped now. Don’t worry.”

“And you have another one?” Kimi asked.

“Well… um…” Daniel glanced over at the notes he’d left on the table, wincing when Lucy brushed them aside to put tea down. “Yes,” he said, when he caught the look Kimi was shooting at him. “Sort of. I think I know how I can get Sebastian back. It’s not the simplest thing in the world. Well, the simplest thing in the world would be pretty much impossible. We’d have to go to the head of the NSO, find his weakness like they found yours, and take that. Simple swap. You’d be amazed at how often that actually works.”

“But?” Kimi asked. He was waiting for the ‘but’.

“But nobody knows who the head of the NSO is,” Lucy finished, handing Kimi a cup, which he ignored.

“What if we found that out?” Kimi asked.

Daniel considered it for a moment, then nodded. “If we found that out, then it would be the easiest option. Honestly, what I’ve got now is shaky at best. But finding the head of the NSO is impossible.”

“I’ll do it,” Kimi said. He wasn’t going to listen to anything Daniel or Lucy tried to tell him. He was going to do it.

“But, Mr Räikkönen...” Daniel looked between Lucy and the hit man. “I’m not sure if I’m going to get clearance to go after Sebastian Vettel.”

“You help me get Sebastian back, I’ll hand over whatever information I might have about NSO,” Kimi said.

Daniel turned to Lucy, who was leaning against the back wall, drinking her tea. He could see she was grinning behind the mug, dying to say I told you so.


	11. The driver

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rob tries to put his own feelings aside when it is clear Felipe is having difficulty coping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, a nice happy chapter. No, this was genuinely is. And a little short.

“You’re making a habit of this,” Rob said when Felipe rushed into the classroom again, only fifteen minutes after the school day had ended. This time Felipinho ran across the room and leapt into his father’s arms, making Rob grin a little more than it should have.

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Felipe said, holding Felipinho close to him and running his free hand up and down the child’s back.

“Mr Massa, are you ok?”

“Am fine,” Felipe whispered. His eyes were closed.

Rob hovered over the desk, uncertain as to whether he should come over. “Mr Massa?”

Felipe took another deep breath, thankful that Felipinho wasn’t squirming away. He just needed this. Just for a moment. He needed to forget what had happened and remember why he carried on.

“There’s a café around the corner from here,” Rob said. This was not about him, he told himself. The parent was clearly in a state and Rob was just trying to be a friend. This was what a friend would do. “My daughter’s with her mum this evening. Would you like to go for coffee?”

Felipe frowned and looked over his son’s shoulder at the teacher, but Rob was just smiling up at him from the desk. He was waiting for the trick, because he knew now there was always a trick. Good things didn’t happen to him. He knew that now. But Rob didn’t seem… _Because Lucy seemed like she was just using you? Because the train crash seemed like one big set up? _

“It’s ok, if you don’t want to,” Rob said, quickly, his stomach heaving at the panicked expression on Felipe’s face. “I just… want to help.”

Felipe looked over him again. Maybe the teacher was genuinely trying to be nice. How cruel could a primary school teacher be? He took a deep breath, still rubbing Felipinho’s back, then nodded. He didn’t dare open his mouth, in case he was sick or burst into tears.

Rob’s face brightened again. “Give me half a minute sort this out and we’ll go.”

 

Rob could tell there was something wrong. Felipe wouldn’t look at him, and had been staring into his coffee for five minutes now, not having actually touched the drink. He’d imagined this scene dozens of times, but could he remember even one of the ways he’d planned on starting a conversation?

Felipinho was off in the small play area the café had in the corner and Felipe was thankful for the semi-privacy it offered. Three times in the last five minutes, he’d gone to tell Rob everything, but then caught himself. That was all he needed to do: break the so called security. Again.

“I want to quit my job, but I can’t,” he said eventually, making Rob jump a little. He knew he couldn’t quit. Kimi and Jenson would see that as a security threat, and look where that had left Michael. He’d seen the sort of states Kimi came away from jobs in sometimes. The others just typed away at their computers and could pretend like they were normal, but he _couldn’t_. He knew what Kimi could do. He knew what Kimi _had_ done. They had been fine risking his life before. He knew they wouldn’t think twice about killing him this time.

Felipe pressed the coffee mug to his lips and tried to stay calm. He was going to be fine. As long as there was no reason, Kimi wasn’t going to do anything to him.

“Any reason you want to quit your job?” Rob asked, hoping to keep the conversation going and not fall into another five minutes of silence. “Or is it just…?”

“My co-workers are evil and I hate them,” Felipe muttered into his coffee.

The last thing he was expecting Rob to do was laugh. He looked up at the teacher, confused, and felt a small smile tug onto his own face.

“Aren’t they all? Correct me if I’m wrong, but Felipinho said you were a driver,” Rob said, carefully. “Doesn’t that keep you away from your co-workers most of the time?”

“Most of the time do not need to see them,” Felipe said. The only person he had to see was Kimi – Kimi who had killed Michael. Kimi who had nearly killed him.

“Well, if you _can’t_ quit your job, you’re going to have to just ignore them,” Rob said. “I’ll tell you what: the teacher in the classroom opposite mine is evil. Like, she’ll keep the kids in at lunch for the stupidest little things. And then, whenever I’m out in the corridor, trying to explain calmly to a child why they shouldn’t be doing whatever it is they’re doing, she’s straight out there, down the kid’s throat. She tries to make them feel like the worst thing on the planet. To say I hate her would be a bit of an understatement. But I deal with her. I avoid her whenever I can. I swap her sandwiches around in the staff room with filling she doesn’t like. I get really petty, if I’m honest. But I haven’t killed her yet. I think that’s a positive.”

Rob beamed when he saw the small smile on Felipe’s face grow.

“May not be quite as easy as that,” he said, quietly, but he liked the idea. Just the thought of it was making him feel better. “But thank you.”

“What are friends for?”

 

Bathed and dressed in the warmest pyjamas Felipe could find, Felipinho was tucked up in bed, looking well and truly exhausted. Felipe knelt beside the bed, book in one hand, his other running through his son’s hair.

“You know I love you, don’t you?” Felipe said, quietly, watching his son’s eyes droop heavily. “More than anything else in the world.”

“Even more than…” Felipinho yawned loudly, blinking back sleep. “Even more than Michael?”

Felipe’s hand paused in his hair for a moment, but he shook himself back to normal and carried on moving the hand, Felipinho smiling sleepily at the touch. “Even more than Michael. Even more than anything.”

“I love you too, Daddy,” Felipinho said, sleepily. “Then Michael second.” Felipe pulled his hand away and rubbed his eyes, trying to keep his own sleep away, he told himself. “Then Mr Smedley.”

“Mr Smedley?”

“Hmmmm,” Felipinho agreed. “He’s nice and sometimes he lets me have extra fruit when he thinks nobody’s looking.”

Felipe laughed a little. Felipinho proudly told him whenever an adult spoilt him, and it was a little worrying how often that was.

“Does he now?” he said, standing. “Alright, are you going to move over so I can sit down?”

Felipinho shifted over in the bed and Felipe sat on the edge, opening the reading book at the beginning and leading a sleepy child through the story.

 


	12. The Grown-Ups' Mess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felipinho knows that something is wrong, but the grown-ups promised him last time that nobody else was going to be gone, and he was going to make sure they kept that promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of experimenting with narration here. Let me know if it works for you. (My youngest two bothers are four and six, and helped a lot with the voice, so hopefully it shouldn't be too off)

Somebody was banging on the front door down stairs.

Felipinho had been awake for a while, but the rest of the house was silent, and he knew on weekends he was supposed to stay in bed. He couldn’t sleep though. Something funny was going on, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it or not. The banging made him jump, and he lay as still as he could, listening for Daddy to go and answer the door. He waited for the creak outside his bedroom door as Daddy passed, but there was nothing. As quietly as he could, Felipinho crept out of bed and shuffled out onto the landing. If he lay on his stomach, he could see the front door from the top of the stairs, so he lay there, watching the front door shake a little with the banging.

A few seconds later, Daddy came out of the living room, rubbing his face. Felipinho frowned. He hadn’t come to bed. He knew it. He knew something was wrong.

But Daddy had said nothing was wrong, and Daddies didn’t lie, because that was naughty.

Jenson stumbled in as soon as the door was opened.

“I’ve been trying to phone you.” He sounded angry. Felipinho shuffled back a little. He wanted to go back to bed, but he stayed on the landing floor, watching,

“Was sleeping,” Daddy mumbled, shutting the door behind him.

“That girl yesterday, Felipe, she’s trouble.”

Jenson was definitely angry. Or scared. Felipinho didn’t like that. Grown-ups weren’t supposed to be scared. They were supposed to know what to do. And Daddy wasn’t supposed to be angry, but he was.

“Already knew this yesterday,” he said. “Is not nice to be kept in the dark, is it?”

Jenson looked confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Know about Michael.”

Michael?

“Daddy?” Felipinho stood, rubbing his eyes. Something was definitely wrong, and the last time something had been wrong, Michael had gone. But nobody was going to be gone this time. They weren’t allowed this time.

Daddy looked up at him and smiled, but it wasn’t right. It wasn’t happy. He didn’t say anything to Felipinho, but turned back to Jenson. “Think maybe you should go and speak to Kimi.”

“I would if I knew where he was,” Jenson said. He sounded like he was singing, so maybe he wasn’t angry anymore. Grown-ups made no sense. Slowly, holding on tightly to the banister, Felipinho came down the stairs. “He’s not answering his phone and he’s not at his flat.”

Kimi was lost?

Felipinho didn’t really know Kimi that well. He wasn’t Michael and he wasn’t like Michael, but he still wasn’t allowed to be gone, because nobody was.

“He went with Lucy somewhere, do not know where,” Daddy said, rushing up the stairs and picking Felipinho up to carry him down the last half of the staircase. “Has gone to find Sebastian.”

“No, I’ve tried Sebastian, he’d not answering,” Jenson said.

“Of course not, has been taken by some silly organisation. NSO,” Daddy said. He didn’t put Felipinho down, instead taking him into the kitchen to make breakfast. For a second, Felipinho had almost forgotten how hungry he was. That was a good thing. If Daddy was making breakfast, things couldn’t be that bad. When Michael had gone, he hadn’t had breakfast. They’d just left. Nobody was going to be gone if he was having breakfast, Felipinho was certain, “I guess you know who they are.”

“ _Felipe,”_ Jenson snapped, following them into the kitchen. He slammed the cupboard door shut when Daddy opened it, making Felipinho jump. “What is going on?”

He saw when Daddy looked down at him, even if Daddy didn’t know. “Let me make breakfast, then I’ll explain everything.”

 

Kimi had found an empty carriage on a relatively quiet train back to the city. Lucy had gone back the night before – something to do with Lewis - and was waiting for them at the train station, leaving Kimi with Daniel. To begin with, the younger man tried to provoke conversation, but Kimi was silent, and Daniel soon gave up. The strategist now had the laptop out and was tapping away, trying to reform his original plan. As awe inspiring as he found Kimi, he didn’t think he would be able to find the leader of the NSO. They had been looking for him for as long as Daniel could remember, and he wasn’t hopeful.

Kimi was focused on his phone, waiting for another phone call from whoever was holding Sebastian, but there was nothing. He ignored call after call from Jenson, waiting.

The problem, as Daniel saw it, was that _nobody_ – not even people in the NSO - knew who the leader was. He was hoping that the information Kimi had on the organisation would give them something to springboard off of, but he wasn’t counting on it.

This was hopeless.

“What did you find out when you were recording Sebastian and his boss?” Kimi asked all of a sudden. He was trying to organise ideas in his head. Daniel seemed pretty much useless and Kimi was going to have to get Sebastian back himself.

“Well… um… We didn’t want to continue monitoring Sebastian and Lewis for any longer than was necessary,” Daniel explained, his eyes flicking between Kimi and the laptop. “It would become suspicious if we monitored for too long.”

“You’ve got to have some idea how they found out,” Kimi pressed.

“We don’t have that much information on the NSO as it is,” Daniel said. “That was why we were trying to contact you in the first place, before all this happened. You do still have the information on the NSO?”

“Yes,” Kimi said, offering no further answer. The information was mostly what Jenson managed to find out about Michael, and the things he had been able to piece together from what the spy told him. It wasn’t much, but if that could help, he knew he’d give it to them. He just needed to know Nathan was safe.

It always stunned Kimi how oblivious to the world his boyfriend was. Sebastian set out goals and plans and he accomplished them. Things outside of those plans didn’t exist to him, and it scared him how innocent Sebastian was.

“Who do you _know_ knew about you two?” Daniel asked.

Kimi rolled his eyes. “Nobody who would do anything.”

“Please, Mr Räikkönen,” Daniel said, not looking up from the computer he was tapping at.

“Just the people at Eggplant Press,” Kimi said. “Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa. Not even the guys I got in for disposal. So if you’re wasting your time looking into that.”

Daniel sighed and fell back into the seat. This was hopeless. Kimi was no more likely to find out who was running the NSO than any of their agents had been.

 

“Come on little man,” Daddy was saying. He gave a small sigh as he wiped the yoghurt from the front of Felipinho’s jumper, as if it really mattered that he had yoghurt on the jumper. They were just going to a party. Felipinho went to school looking a lot messier than this. Unless they weren’t going to the party…

“Thought we were going to the party,” he complained when he realised the silly, itchy jumper meant they were probably going to some place ‘important’.

“Yeah, so did I,” Daddy said. He sounded tired. He probably should have gone to bed instead of staying up all night watching telly. “Will do once we’ve gone to drive Kimi and his friends to work, ok?”

Felipinho waited until Daddy had led him out of the house and was leading him towards the car before he asked the next question.

“Is something the matter with Kimi?”

Daddy stopped when they reached the car and looked down at him. “No. Why would you think that?”

Felipinho excitedly climbed into the front passenger seat, where Daddy had put his car seat. He didn’t get to sit in the posh car very often. Sometimes, Daddy told him off for even touching it, even on the outside. He could put up with the itchy jumper if it meant sitting in the posh car. The _proper_ car.

“Felipinho?” Daddy said. He sounded worried. What was there to be worried about? “Why would you think something was wrong with Kimi?”

Oh, that.

“You didn’t sound very happy when you was talking to Jenson,” Felipinho said, remembering suddenly what he had been talking about.He wasn’t allowed to forget about that, because he couldn’t let the grown-ups break their promise again. Nobody was allowed to be gone, that was what they had said. And when Daddy and Jenson had gone into the other room whilst he was eating breakfast, he’d known it was because they were planning on breaking their promise. What else would they be talking about in secret?

Daddy gave him another one of those little smiles that didn’t look happy as he strapped him in. “It’s ok, Felipinho. Kimi’s alright. Everybody’s alright.”

Well, that was good. Of course Kimi was alright. Felipinho should have known he was being silly. That was where they would be going now. They only ever used the posh car when Kimi was going to be coming in it.

But something was definitely wrong, and he was determined to find out what.

Kimi was waiting for them when they got to the train station, with two other people Felipinho had never seen before. They were arguing and he didn’t like it. They didn’t need any more arguing people.

“You brought the kid?” Kimi said, climbing into the back seat.

Felipinho gave him his biggest smile, hoping to make Kimi smile. He was the moodiest man Felipinho had ever met, but Felipinho was good at making grown-ups smile. Sometimes he didn’t think Kimi was a real grown-up though. Maybe he was a zombie. Remembering the theory made his smile fall a little.

“Am not supposed to be working on the weekend,” Daddy pointed out. He had that funny singing voice again and Felipinho didn’t know why. They were all being silly when something was wrong and maybe grown-ups shouldn’t have been allowed to be in charge.

The two other people seemed friendly, though, once they stopped arguing. Felipinho grinned, happy ignoring Kimi now he had the attention of the two others. They would give him treats too, he knew it.

Daddy didn’t say anything the entire time Kimi was in the car. Maybe they weren’t friends anymore. Felipinho wasn’t sure why anybody would want to be friends with Kimi when he was so grumpy all the time. Kimi didn’t look like he wanted to be friends with anybody either. Even when people were nice to him, Kimi was grumpy.

The two other people fussed over him on the way to wherever they were being taken, but Kimi and Daddy didn’t speak, and there was definitely something wrong. He was pretty sure it wasn’t because anybody was going to be gone, and that was important, but if it wasn’t that, then it was something else. Maybe it was something worse.

When they reached wherever Daddy was taking Kimi and the other two – Felipinho wasn’t sure if they were his friends – the other two said goodbye in that silly way grown-ups said goodbye, but Kimi didn’t say anything. Daddy didn’t say anything to any of them, but turned to Felipinho and smiled – properly smiled – when they were gone.

“Shall we go to that party then?

 


	13. The double agent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy's old friend returns from hiding with a valuable resource.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to introduce more characters!

Relaxing, up beat music filled the room and, with the sun beaming in through the dusty blinds, Fernando could almost pretend he was at home if he closed his eyes. Then somebody would stamp angrily past their office and the door to the break room would slam shut. Mark looked just as confused as he was, but neither of them said anything as they got to work on another couple of articles which could pass for fake on the blog.

Neither of them were supposed to be in the office on Saturdays. Nobody did, but Jenson had phoned and insisted they come in and, even though they’d received no explanation, here they were.

One thing they had learned very early on in their time at Eggplant Press was to not ask questions.

“You don’t think…” Fernando began, stopping quickly when whoever it was marching angrily past their door marched back into Kimi’s office. “You don’t think it’s another Michael?”

Mark looked up from his computer. “No,” he said, a little too quickly to be any comfort. “No, Jenson wouldn’t let something like that happen again. And he wouldn’t need us here if he had done.”

“Suppose,” Fernando said, then turned back to his computer and continued to read. After he’d read the line “It is most likely that the origin of the werewolf in the royal family was hidden in the eighteen hundreds,” six times, he gave up and closed the browser. “Is no use. Something is up.”

“I know but,” Mark sighed and gave a little shrug. There was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing either of them could do about it really. “Want to go ask if you can help?”

“No,” Fernando said immediately.

“Well then,” Mark said as if he’d just proven a point, then turned back to the article.

Silence fell between the two of them, and Fernando closed his eyes, trying to submerge himself in the light music he’d put on as a distraction to what was going on outside, but it was no use. “Aren’t you worried?”

“Course I am,” Mark said. He’d be an idiot not to be.

“So, what are you going to do?” Fernando asked. Mark sighed and stood. Fernando’s face flooded with panic. “Did not mean for you to _actually_ do something.”

Mark laughed. “I’m going to get some more snacks. Do you want anything?”

“Oh, check to see if they have any more of those cinnamon apple slice things,” Fernando said, cheering up immediately.

Mark rolled his eyes and nodded. Everyone else wanted crisps. He wanted apple slices.

The break room was, thankfully, empty when he swung in to grab his jacket before heading downstairs. He knew Kimi had brought guests with him when he returned to the office. He’d been in the break room at the time, and heard Jenson trying to argue with him about security. _Trying_ being the key word, because Kimi didn’t care with people thought was best at the best of times, and now wasn’t one of those times, because Sebastian was missing.

He didn’t want Fernando finding out about that, because Fernando would only end up freaking out. He’d been a nightmare to calm down after they found out about Michael, and had very nearly told Felipe about the train crash. Thankfully, it had been a quiet year, and there had been no real emergencies to get him worked up again. Mark didn’t know how his boyfriend would react to Sebastian being missing, but he was willing to bet it wouldn’t be well, and he couldn’t risk him panicking again.

Mark hurried down the stairs once he’d retrieved his jacket, and was surprised to not see Jenson sat behind the desk, rushing to get his feet off of it and pretend he was working. Mark shrugged it off, assuming it had something to do with the argument upstairs that he wanted nothing to do with, then hurried through the small reception and outside.

 _Don’t forget the apple slices_ , Mark thought to himself, practically skipping down the small side road that led to the main part of the retail part. _There is nothing more important than the-_

Some things were more important than the apple slice. For instant, the two police officers making their way towards him.

Both were short compared to Mark, who was comically tall compared to them. The further Mark walked across the retail park, the more obvious it was that they were approaching him, and that he had noticed. His throat suddenly dry, Mark came to a stop and waited for the police officers to reach him. Maybe they would just walk past. This wasn’t the safest part of town, maybe they wanted nothing to do with him.

The officers stopped in front of him. Maybe not then.

“We’re looking for Lucy Windford and Daniel Ricciardo,” the first officer said. She looked up at Mark, not put off by the height distance in the slightest, and Mark backed away a little. She didn’t look like somebody he wanted to mess with.

He shook his head and frowned. “Nope, never heard of them.”

“Don’t even bother, Mr Webber,” the officer cut in quickly. “We don’t really have time for this. We know our agents are inside and would be very grateful if you could show us inside, thank you.”

Agents?

Mark looked over the police woman’s shoulder – he hadn’t even realised she’d taken a step forward – at the second officer, an equally short man with a slightly scary half smile on his still childlike face.

The woman grabbed his attention again.

“Now, Mr Webber.”

“I- Well- You should probably follow me,” Mark said, turning around to lead the two officers into Eggplant Press. Jenson was going to moan at him about security and Fernando was going to moan at him about apple slices. Mark wasn’t sure which was going to be worse.

“Jenson! Kimi! I think they’re some people here you should probably meet!” he called up the stairs once they were inside, giving an uncertain smile to the two police officers that were stood in the small reception area. “Now!”

There was movement upstairs and Jenson rushed down stairs, the perfect smile he had forced onto his face falling when he saw who was gathered in the waiting area. He looked between Mark and the officers, trying to re-conjure the smile that had left his face, but it was hopeless.

“They’re looking for Lucy Windford and Daniel Ricciardo,” Mark murmured into Jenson’ ear, making the secretary’s eyes grow even wider. He looked between the officers again. In normal circumstances, he would have been able to deal with the situation perfectly with the right balance of charm and sarcasm, but with everything going on, Jenson’ brain simply stopped functioning.

“Kimi?”

Kimi wasn’t the next to run down the stairs, though. Lucy and Daniel stumbled down, then froze, both of them staring at the police officers who stared back at them. Nobody moved for a few moments, then Lucy squealed.

“Susie!” she cried, rushing across the room to hug the female police officer. The woman’s serious expression broke into a grin and she hugged Lucy back.

Mark mumbled something about going back to Fernando and hurried back up the stairs so he could pretend he knew nothing about what was going on. He passed Kimi on the stairs and offered his usual chirpy grin. As always, Kimi didn’t return it.

“What happened? I haven’t seen you in _ages_! Look at you.” Lucy was still grinning. She turned around to see when Kimi came into the room and stepped back to introduce them. “Mr Räikkönen, this is Susie-“

“Wolff,” Susie cut in before Lucy could finished.

“You _married_ ,” Lucy cried, shocked. “When was this? I never heard about this!”

“Well, I _was_ in hiding, Lucy,” Susie reminded her, grinning.

“Shit, yeah! What happened? How come you’re… not?” Lucy asked. She remembered what had happened – years ago now but still causing hiccups at work every few months - and why she hadn’t seen this woman who had been like an older sister to her in all that time. That had been a mess.

Kimi frowned down at Jenson, who gave a small shrug in explanation. Another distraction was not what they needed right now. They were still no closer to finding Sebastian than they had been yesterday morning.

“Why are you here?” Kimi asked, before Susie could answer Lucy’s question.

“Well,” Susie couldn’t push the smile on her face. She’d been waiting to get back to action for years. “Ignore the outfits. That’s a part of the story that doesn’t actually matter. Mr Räikkönen, isn’t it? My husband is still working as Lucy’s superior, so I was familiar with the case. We think we might have something useful.”

Kimi said nothing, waiting for Susie to continue. She took it in her stride, ignoring Kimi’s glare, and continued.

“We have ourselves a double agent, Mr Räikkönen. We thought this might be useful to you.”

“A what?” Kimi asked.

“Susie?”

“Nope,” Susie said, waving to the colleague she had brought with her.

Lucy’s mouth fell open. “Is that Valtteri?”

Valtteri Bottas beamed sheepishly at the floor, shuffling his feet a little.

“It’s a long story, but Valtteri is in the NSO,” Susie explained, grinning. “They think he’s spying on us. But he’s one of the good guys, Mr Räikkönen. You can trust him. I heard you were on the case Lucy, and I thought it might be some help. It’s been so long. Too long. And there aren’t a lot of people working on this.”

“No, Daniel is strategist though,” Lucy said, gesturing over to Daniel, who was stood awkwardly behind Kimi.

“Daniel?” Susie said. “Daniel _Ricciardo_? Aw, Daniel, you finally did it!”

“Yeah, I’m working on the strategy,” Daniel said, grinning at Susie’s delight. “Do you know stuff, Valtteri? How far in are you?”

“I am not sure,” Valtteri said. “Not too deep. But what is your plan, and I’ll tell you how I can help.”

“We find out who’s leading the NSO,” Kimi said. “Take what they care about and do a simple swap. Daniel _said_ that would work.”

“I _said_ that would work _if_ we found out who was leading the NSO,” Daniel said quickly. He turned hopefully to Valtteri, but he shook his head.

“Only people at the top know even his name,” Valtteri said. “You’re going to need another plan.”

Despair fell over Lucy’s face and the smile that almost always held Daniel’ was gone when Kimi glared at him, but Kimi had known finding the leader’s identity was a long shot. Susie’s smile fell as her friends’ did.

“Well, Michael would have known, wouldn’t he?” she said, hopefully. “I’m sorry, I don’t quite know the case details but did he say anything? Anything at all?”

“The only thing he said about his boss was that his boss wasn’t happy about his relationship with Felipe,” Lucy said, having asked the exact same thing to Kimi earlier and not wanting Susie to experience the answer she had been given. She shook her head. It was useless. And the plan Daniel had pulled together was hardly water tight. The information Kimi might have was too valuable for them to pass up, though, even with an agent in the NSO, and he was only revealing what was needed until he had Nathan back.

“Oh, so well, that narrows it down,” Susie said, then a thought occurred. “Does the NSO know you’re based here? Because if Michael came here….”

“We moved head-quarters after Michael was killed,” Jenson said, finally managing to regain his voice. “As far as we know, they don’t know we’re here.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Susie said. “We’re going to help you, Mr Räikkönen. Valtteri will find out where Sebastian is and-“

Before Susie could finish, the phone on Jenson’ desk began to ring. Kimi rolled his eyes and Jenson rushed to answer it.

“Good afternoon, Eggplant Press. Jenson Button speaking,” Jenson said, prompting a groan from Kimi. “I’m sorry but- oh.” He gulped and handed the phone to Kimi. It’s for you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A thank you to everyone who has commented and I haven't replied to. I do see them all and love them all but I honestly don't know what to say and feel like I'm repeating myself over and over. :D They make me feel really happy. Thank you.  
> (Although if you don't like it and want to say why you don't like it, I'd appreciate that too. Don't be silenced)


	14. The Phonecall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sebastian's able to put a face to a voice.

When Sebastian had tried to protest by not eating the gruel they shoved into the small cell, they turned the air conditioning up until he thought he might die from hypothermia or something. Reluctantly, he’d eaten the food – which didn’t actually taste that bad – and the room had returned to a bearable temperature, but he still hadn’t spoken to anybody since the first phone call.

It had been… he didn’t know how long it had been. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep and he didn’t know how long he’d been awake. They’d removed the blindfold when he was sleeping and that was no comfort. If he saw a face, he could identify one. If he got out…

A man Sebastian didn’t recognise came into the room, slamming the door shut behind him, making the entire room shake and Sebastian thought he might burst into tears.

He crouched in front of Sebastian, pushing his luck as Sebastian wasn’t restrained in anyway, just too exhausted to do anything. He gave a small sigh, looking Sebastian in the eye.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, calmly.

Sebastian wanted to point out that the throbbing in the back of his head said otherwise, but he didn’t want that throbbing spread to anywhere else, so kept his mouth shut.

“How are you feeling? Is there anything you need?”

It was the voice, the same voice from the phone call.

“I-I-I-I-I-“

The man actually laughed. “It’s ok, calm down.”

“Calm down!” Sebastian croaked.

“I’m sorry,” the man said. “My name’s Christian, does that help?”

“C-Christian?” Sebastian stuttered. “I’m Sebastian.”

“I know,” Christian said with a small laugh. “We’re not going to hurt you. You’re only here until we have Kimi Räikkönen.”

“What do you want with Kimi,” Sebastian said, quietly. “Please… don’t hurt him.”

“He killed one of my friends, Sebastian,” Christian said, quietly. “He nearly killed one of his own friends. Kimi Räikkönen is a bad man, and I’m sorry you had to meet him.”

“Please,” Sebastian croaked, tears beginning to blur his vision. “He’s not a bad person, not really. People just don’t understand.”

Christian stood and looked down at their young captive. He didn’t deserve this, and Christian didn’t agree with what he was being forced to do, but he understood why. He didn’t _want_ to hurt anyone, and he really didn’t want to hurt Sebastian. The kid was fragile enough without all this, but he had orders to follow, and some things weren’t worth losing, not even if you were doing the right thing.

“Did you know he had a wife?” Christian asked.

Sebastian’s head shot up, and Christian had turned around, preying silently for forgiveness. This wasn’t what he had joined the NSO to do.

“What?”

“He has a pregnant wife in London,” Christian said. “He travels lots, right? He tells you it’s for work?”

Sebastian was still staring at him when Christian turned around a few minutes later, his bright blue eyes swimming with tears. Christian gulped and crouched down in front of Sebastian again.

“I’m sorry, Sebastian.”

“It’s not true,” Sebastian said, quickly. “You’re lying. It’s not true.”

“Ask him,” Christian said, standing again. He couldn’t just sit there with the kid and tell him this. He didn’t care what he was losing, he wasn’t going to say any more. He pulled out the mobile he had been given and dialled the number for Eggplant Press, pressing the phone against Sebastian’s ear again.

“ _Good afternoon, Eggplant Press. Jenson Button speaking. I’m sorry but_ -“

“Jenson? Jenson is Kimi-“

The phone was dragged away before Sebastian could say anything else.

“Hello?”

“Mr Räikkönen,” Christian said, his back to Sebastian. “So nice to speak to you again.”

“What do you want?” Kimi said, coldly.

“Well, that depends on a variety of things,” Christian said, slowly, as he had been instructed to say.

“No. Tell me what you want,” Kimi hissed.

“This is what is going to happen,” Christian said. “I’m going to phone you nine o’clock every morning. You answer, straight away. I don’t want to hear anybody else. I don’t even want anybody else in the room. You give me the name of your last client. That’s all. You do that, I’ll let you speak to Sebastian here. You keep it up and he won’t be hurt. Keep it up long enough, and who knows, you might get to see him again.”

“Christian, please,” Sebastian moaned, tears rolling down his face.

Christian took a deep breath, but he heard Kimi draw breath too and jumped in before the hit man could start speaking.

“You don’t answer, or if somebody else is in the room, or if you refuse to give us a name, I cannot guarantee Sebastian’s welfare. Do you understand?”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and Christian thought for a moment that he might have left the phone. Maybe he really didn’t care about Sebastian as much as he said he did.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand.” A tired, broken voice. It made Christian gulp more than Kimi did when he was angry.

“Good,” Christian said. “I’ll speak to you tomorrow.”


	15. The Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rob's just there to offer support, he tells himself, but he can't hide his ulterior motive from himself, or his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a nice long chapter to make up for the short one a couple of days ago. :)

“Are you ever on time?” Rob laughed as he spotted Felipinho running through the small crowd of eight and nine year olds to one of his friends.

“Was not even supposed to be working today,” Felipe said, rushing over to the corner by the kitchen area where Rob was pouring squash into about a hundred plastic cups beside a small pile of presents. He gave a small smile to three other men that had gathered in the corner as he passed, but it was forced and even the small smile made his face ache. “Brought a card but is not finished just yet. Never actually found out what your daughter’s name was.”

Rob grinned, not noticing the strain the smile caused, and waved to the home made banner behind him. _Happy birthday Ivy._ The grin made Felipe’s smile a little easier and scribbled Ivy’s name at the top of the card, quickly sealing the envelope before handing it to Rob.

“Oh, I wonder who this could be from,” Rob said in mock surprise, putting the card at the top of a pile of cards beside him. “Would you like a drink? We have apple squash, orange squash- ok, we’ve got pretty much any squash in the world. We’ve also got tea, if you want tea, or coffee.”

“Look at Rob, getting all panicky over the new kid,” one of the other dad’s called over, making the two other guys giggle like school girls. Rob turned bright red in an instant.

“Just… um… coffee, please,” Felipe said.

“Let me just…” Rob bounced past Felipe into the small kitchen area and flicked the kettle on. “Let me just introduce you to everybody.”

‘Everybody’ consisted of Sam, Tom, and Raj, who were still giggling like idiots as they were being introduced. They all shared knowing glances, not trying to hide them from Felipe, which only made them laugh more. Felipe forced himself to smile politely at them, laughing at their jokes that didn’t make much sense to him, but he was still trying to push Kimi and Lucy and Michael out of his head. Conversation moved on to which of the hyper children regularly came to _Fun for fathers,_ and Felipe listened, trying to distract himself, whilst they pointed out whose kid was whose and how they all ended up at the group, but it was little use.

“Kettle,” Rob said quickly, before rushing back behind the counter to make Felipe’s coffee. “How do you take it again?”

“Milk one sugar.”

“There used to be another one,” Tom said, continuing the conversation. “Seb. But his ex took full custody of his daughter a couple of months ago now and stopped him seeing her. He got really upset and said he didn’t want to be around kids. Understandable.”

“Yeah,” Sam said. “He tried to say it was something about having a boyfriend now, and he didn’t want to rub their relationship in our faces. It’s supposed to be for single parents, that was his excuse. But Rob would have let him come.”

“Break the rules,” Tom laughed.

“There are no rules,” Rob said, hurrying over with the coffee for Felipe.

“No. Besides, Rob wouldn’t make that rule anyway,” Raj said, winking at Rob.

Felipe’s polite smile fell into a confused one. He glanced between Rob and the other dads but, before he could ask any questions, Felipinho ran up and grabbed his leg.

“What’s the matter?” Felipe asked, crouching down.

“Need to toilet,” Felipinho said.

“Am sorry,” Felipe said, standing and taking his son’s hand. “He won’t go in a new place by himself.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s fine,” Rob said, trying to hide the relief that the others would have to leave Felipe alone for five minutes. “Toilets are out of the door you came in by and on the right.”

“Thanks, come on little man.”

Rob turned on the other fathers as soon as Felipe was out of ear shot. “Do you have to?”

“What?” Tom asked, innocently.

“Honestly, Rob, we didn’t think you’d actually have the guts to ask him,” Sam admitted. “Sorry, sorry, we’re just excited for you.”

“You’re acting like children and you’re going to scare him off,” Rob hissed. He hadn’t been sure if he wanted Felipe to actually come, knowing that exactly this would happen, but the others had been making fun of him for months. He hadn’t even meant to mention the fact he liked one of the dads at the school. It had just slipped out once when they were talking about finding the perfect partner (because _that_ existed, they had concluded). Then the months of questions started: Is he single? Have you spoken to him yet? Is he even gay? Have you spoken to him yet? What does he look like? Have you spoken to him yet? Rob tried to change the subject every time, but they’d just grin at each other, as if that proved something only they had discussed.

“I never thought he’d be that short,” Sam said, thoughtfully.

“I told you he was short,” Rob said, trying desperately not to smile because this wasn’t funny and he was supposed to be annoyed at them.

“Yeah, but I never thought he’d be _that_ short,” Sam said, whilst the others hummed their agreement.

“You’re not very good at describing people,” Raj agreed.

Rob had tried desperately not to describe him at all, bringing the conversation onto _anything_ else so that he didn’t have to talk about his stupid hopeless crush, and he wasn’t going to talk about it now, either.

“Look, be gentle with him,” he said, “Believe it or not, I’m not doing this for me. He needs support right now and that’s what we’re here for.”

“That’s what _you’re_ here for,” Tom said. “Don’t even bother to lie.”

Rob groaned leaning against the wall behind him. He couldn’t deny it, but he was going to try. He opened his mouth to speak when Ivy grabbed his hand, demanding he change the CD to one of the new ones she’d been given.

“But seriously though,” Sam said, quietly, watching Rob be led away. “We can’t ruin this for him. He’ll kill us”

They all watched as Felipe returned, his son immediately running off to join the rest of the children.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Raj said, watching as Felipe found Rob in the small crowd of children – mostly Ivy’s friend’s from school – and hurried over to him. “Just got to hope Rob doesn’t get hurt.”

Rob was grinning, though, and it had been a long time since any of them had seen him this happy.

 

“Let me help with that,” Felipe said, taking the bin liner for Rob. He was trying to clean away the rubbish the children had left now that most of them had been picked up from their parents. Sam, Tom, and Raj were still there, but had agreed to give Rob some space and were watching him from the same corner they had spent most of the party in.

“Thanks,” Rob said, pouring another paper plate of half eaten cupcakes into the bin. “Next year, her mum can do the party.”

“Is a lot of trouble, no?” Felipe laughed, following Rob with the bag as he made his way around the room. “Will have to remember that when he wants one. Looks like they had fun though.”

Ivy was showing off one of her new toys to a friend, loving how her friends from _Fun for fathers_ , all of which were younger than her, watched in awe.

“She likes to be centre of attention,” Rob agreed, he turned to joke to Felipe but it was clear he wasn’t listening.

He was watching Felipinho, already beginning to steal Ivy’s limelight with little effort. It was a wonder how his son had turned out… _normal_. Felipe hadn’t been sure what to expect when Rob had said he’d needed to talk, that there were _concerns_ , but he’d been certain it would be worse than a few stutters in his reading books.

“Are you ok?” Rob asked, uncertainly.

“Yeah, of course.” Felipe shrugged and opened the bin bag for Rob to tip more unfinished food inside.

“Sorry things were a little crazy today,” Rob said, hoping that twenty screaming eight year olds hadn’t put him off for good. “It’s not normally so loud. Felipe, are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yeah,” Felipe insisted. “Things are not so good right now. Again.”

Rob looked down at Felipe. Why was he so _sad_? He’d thought, if anything, the party would prove to him that Felipinho was absolutely fine. Better than that. If there was anything Rob had learned as a teacher, it was that kids coped far better with problems than adults did, and Felipinho was no exception. In fact, he was probably a perfect example.

Rob took the plastic bag from Felipe, dumped it on the floor, and pulled him out of the main hall. Felipe stumbled, tripping over his own feet, but didn’t protest.

“What’s wrong?” Rob asked. “Is it work? Have you spoken to your boss about everything?”

Felipe looked up at Rob, but quickly looked away, shaking his head with a useless smile. “Is nothing, really.”

“I’ve always said, this place isn’t for the kids, not really,” Rob said. “It’s for the parents. You can talk to me, if you need to.”

Rob felt his stomach flip when Felipe looked up at him again. He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be _using_ him like this. No, he was here to be a friend, because that’s what Felipe needed.

“You can talk to any of us,” Rob added, quickly, trying to settle his own conscience.

“Thank you,” Felipe said, quietly. “But there is not really much to say.”

“Sure, sure,” Rob said, mentally punching himself. “Look, um…” He took a deep breath, knowing he was looking like an idiot and making this out to be a much bigger thing than it was. “Have you seen that new Disney film that’s out?”

“What? Disney film?” Felipe said slowly, confused.

“The new one,” Rob said quickly. “I don’t know. It’s probably going to be the exact same as all the others, but I’m taking Ivy to go and see it tomorrow. I’m spoiling her, _I know_. I was wondering if you and Felipinho wanted to come with us.”

Felipe looked at him as if he’d just grown a second head and Rob’s stomach sank. He physically couldn’t remember the last time he’d liked somebody, _really_ liked somebody, and he’d blown it. He closed his eyes and prayed that, when he opened them, Felipe had just taken Felipinho and gone, because that would make everything a whole lot easier. Rob only ever saw him on the playground, and that was always at a distance. He could live like this. By the end of the year, he wouldn’t even be Felipinho’s class teacher, and he’d only have to see Felipe at parents’ evenings as a progress tutor, if he even made it to them.

When he opened his eyes, Felipe was still staring at him, not so much horrified as… surprised.

“A Disney?” he asked, uncertainly. “Tomorrow?”

He wasn't supposed to be working tomorrow. He wasn't _supposed_ to be working today, though, and Kimi would get annoyed with him if he wasn't available whilst something was clearly going on. That thought made him smile. What was it Rob had said about pettiness being better than killing someone?

“Half one,” Rob said, trying to keep the relief from his voice. “It’s just, Felipinho mentioned he hadn’t been to the cinema in a long time, and I thought…” _I’d thought I might invite you because then I’d have an excuse to talk to you a little more and have nothing against using children to get what I want._

“Felipinho talks to you a lot?” Felipe asked, quietly.

“I- Yeah, I guess so,” Rob said, uncertainly.

“He said he loves you last night,” Felipe said, smiling a little at the memory.

“He’s a very affectionate child,” Rob said, trying to stop the heat rising up his face.

“He said he loved you third of all the people in the world,” Felipe said, forcing the blush to rise in Rob’s cheeks.

“Well, I’m sure he put you first,” Rob said, forcing a laugh.

“Yeah,” Felipe said quietly.

And Michael second. Michael would have been over the moon to hear that. He’d always been scared Felipinho didn’t like him, though Felipe had no idea why. Felipinho liked anybody and Michael was always fussing over him…

“So, cinema?” Rob said, not liking the small frown that tugged at Felipe’s face. “Half one?”

Felipe shook himself, and smiled up at Rob. “Should be good, yes. Half one.”


	16. The Email

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy's already decided she doesn't cope well with being a field agent. In the process of making up for her mistakes, she uncovers something that might come in useful.

Everybody was silent for a few moments after the call had ended, waiting for Kimi to say something. The hit man stood in the suddenly too crowded reception area, waiting for the floor to swallow him. He knew, even with his eyes firmly planted on the floor, they were all watching him, watching the walls tumble down because of one silly little kid he just happened to adore. He couldn’t let this happen.

“Christian,” Kimi said, eventually, completely calm.

He was answered with silence for a little longer, nobody sure what to make of Kimi’s reaction.

“What?” Jenson said.

“Sebastian said a name,” Kimi said, speaking directly to Valtteri. “He was calling to somebody. Who’s Christian?”

Valtteri took a moment to think, not wanting to be the one to bring the Kimi he had heard about back. “I don’t know. But I can find out.”

“What did they say?” Lucy asked. “The person holding him?”

“Just lots of threats,” Kimi lied, hoping she wouldn’t press any further. He’d do as he’d been told, but he was not letting these idiots know. They were amateurs, or amateurish in their operations, at least. He’d use them when he needed to, but he was doing without their interference.

“We should go,” Susie said, taking out her phone and scribbling down a number. When she’d finished, she realised she had no idea who to hand it to, so put it down on Jenson’ desk. “So you can contact us. If we find out anything, I’ll be in touch.”

“I should- should go too,” Lucy said, uncertainly, as she watched Susie and Valtteri leave. Kimi caught the look she shared with Daniel, and he didn’t like it.

“Go where?”

Lucy took a deep breath, trying to find the right words, then bit her lip. There wasn’t really a right way to say it, was there? “I shot Lewis Hamilton yesterday.”

“You what?”

“He’s ok,” Lucy insisted quickly. “It was just a scratch in the arm. It’s nothing serious. He knows something’s wrong, though, and I should really go and see him.”

“She has medical training, don’t worry,” Daniel said, as if this was nothing.

“I’m going to go and check on him, then I’m going to see if I can sort something out at work so it doesn’t look completely abandoned,” Lucy said, sliding past Kimi. She didn’t dare look at him, ignoring the glare he gave her on her way out.

 

Everything felt grey to Lewis. He could barely open his eyes, and the room he managed to catch a glimpse of in the crack he managed between his eyelids told him he wasn’t at home. All his other senses felt groggy. The only thing that he could focus on for long was the dull throbbing in his arm. He knew he couldn’t move his arms, but couldn’t remember why. Or his legs. He remembered Sebastian telling him once of a condition where you woke up, but you’re body remained asleep, but he didn’t think that was happening. For starters, he didn’t quite feel awake.

Somewhere a long way away, a door shut. Lewis tried to yell, but all that came out was a strangled groan, and he couldn’t be sure if that even escaped his mind. He strained desperately to hear something else, but it felt as if his ears were full of cotton wool and straining to hear made him feel dizzy.

The ground below him dipped and Lewis realised he was probably on a bed. And there was someone else there.

Even trying as hard as he could, only a strangled gurgling came from his throat. Success at opening his eyes was just as hard to come by.

There was a hand on his head, cold and heavy.

“Mr Hamilton?”

Lucy?

When Lewis was unresponsive, Lucy took her hand away. He didn’t look too good and his head was a little too warm for her liking. She moved down to the wound she’d expertly cleaned and bandaged. It was barely more than a scratch just above his elbow and when she unravelled the bandages to change them, it didn’t look infected. Once the tablets wore off, he was going to be fine. The fever was an unknown, though, and she was just going to have to wait to see how that worked itself out.

“How are you feeling?”

This was a stupid question, she thought. If he had any memory of what happened, he was probably feeling pretty freaked out, having been shot and tied up.

The sound Lewis made was louder this time, but still nothing more than a groan.

“It’s ok,” Lucy explained, wiping his head with a damp cloth. “You’re going to be fine, and I’m postponing all the meetings until you’re better.”

Lewis was struggling against the bonds on his arms, but they were stuck to his side and that wasn’t going to change. He needed to get away. The grey was beginning to seep away and was replaced by panic. Lucy had shot him. Sebastian was missing, probably dead, and she’d tried to kill him too.

“Mr Hamilton, please, you’re going to hurt yourself,” Lucy said, strangely calm. She already had a laptop out and was looking at her own schedule that Sebastian had set up for her. “Give me a second and I’ll get you something to eat. Just. One. Second.”

There were so many people she had to contact. There were already missed meetings she was going to have to deal with. They would have phoned the office, but there was nobody there to answer it. Sebastian would have been fuming if he was here to see it. The only thing he actually cared about was the company’s image and pleasing people.

That was the difference between Lucy and Sebastian. He was obsessed with the way people saw him and making sure people liked him. Lucy never really even thought about it. She’d much rather slide away into the background, unnoticed. It was a good aspiration to have, as it turned out, but her role in Daniel’ plan had called for her to step out of her comfort zone.

It wasn’t going up against the NSO that scared Lucy, or the idea that they were actually messing with a dangerous criminal that kept her awake at night. It was going out there every day and pretending to be something she wasn’t. Lucy had never wanted to be a field agent. She’d lived that life through Susie and, even though it was exciting, it wasn’t _her_. Direct contact wasn’t _her._

She’d panicked when Sebastian had gone missing, and panicked when she shot Lewis. Secretly she hoped that alone would keep her in monitoring surveillance or something as soon as they were done with Kimi. She’d had her experience in the field, pretending she was somebody she wasn’t, and now she just wanted to go home.

 

Once Lucy had finally made her way through the building, trying to ignore as many questions from heads of departments as possible, she let herself into the office, the large room greeting her exactly as she had left it the day before. The monitors had black screens, but the computers were blinking at her, waiting to be woken. It was a small relief to be alone at last, to be back behind a computer where she knew what she was doing.

Sebastian’s computer was the only one that wasn’t on. It hummed excitedly into life when Lucy held onto the button and she fell back onto his chair, spinning a little as she waited for the machine to start, letting out long breaths as she struggled to calm herself.

Damn Daniel getting her into this.

When the computer eventually loaded, the screen asked for a password. Lucy smiled fondly and brought the keyboard onto her lap, beginning to make guesses. Sebastian wasn’t that complex a man, and she’d been doing this thing for years. A couple of attempts and she was in.

Being nosey was in Lucy’s nature, but she didn’t have the nerves to dig into Sebastian’s personal files. The man may have been a complete dick to her the entire time she had been ‘working’ under him, but he still had privacy, and she fought against her childish pettiness to protect that. The deal maker was the thought that she didn’t want to know a dead man’s secrets.

Lewis’ schedule was easy to find in Sebastian’s most recent documents. Thankfully, there wasn’t a lot of meetings on there, and most of them were with the publicity department downstairs, who had already received a memo informing them of their boss’ ‘illness’. The details for the people that weren’t based in the building weren’t on Sebastian’s computer, though, and Lucy found herself snooping through folders even though she’d promised herself not too.

Unsurprisingly – seeing as Sebastian’s only concern when he was at work seemed to be work – the most personal thing on the computer was the screensaver – a picture of him and his daughter.

Lucy didn’t know Sebastian had a daughter. Why didn’t she know that?

No. Once she was certain there wasn’t an address book on Sebastian’s computer, she switched off the monitor and turned to the desk at the head of the room. As useless as Lewis was, he had set up the business himself and, knowing she herself didn’t have any of the addresses, Lucy sighed and went to her boss’ desk.

Lewis’ computer was also password protected. Knowing even less about the head of the company than she did about Sebastian, it took her a bit longer to get inside, but Lewis’ password was a simple _asdfgh_ and she wasn’t really sure why she was surprised.

Sure enough, there was an address book in Lewis’ recent documents, and Lucy went through the schedule emailing her apologies to all the meetings he wasn’t going to be able to make. She thought it best to email from Lewis’ still open email, mimicking her boss’ style with ease as she had learnt to do with years of practice. Some emailed back straight away, but others took a while to respond. Knowing how important it was to keep her cover going whilst Daniel still hadn’t decided what he wanted to do with her now – and knowing the last place on earth she wanted to be right now was with Kimi – Lucy waited for the other replies.

Half an hour passed in silence. Nobody came up to disturb her, everyone in the building having received the message that their office would be empty. She really didn’t want to think about what was going on, trying to focus on getting back behind her own desk as soon as all this was over. _Help out Daniel_ , she’d thought. _He’ll notice you then,_ she’d thought. That was turning out to be the stupidest thought she had ever had, but that was in the past now.

A pop from the computer dragged Lucy out of what was quickly becoming self-pity and she clicked to open the new email.

_I really hope you didn’t just forget about the meeting today, because Christian is going to be very pissed if you did. Seriously, he’s not in an awesome mood at the moment. Meet me tomorrow in the usual place and he probably won’t even notice the money’s not there, but don’t ever tell him I told you that and don’t ever keep me waiting again._

Lucy frowned at the email, then at the schedule. There was no meeting that day, other than one with the senior management team and that consisted of herself and Sebastian. She didn’t recognise the address and couldn’t find it in the address book, but that was just a formality. She wasn’t an idiot. The email wasn’t work related.

But it looked promising.

She print screened the message, not wanting to forward it from Lewis’ inbox in case… She wasn’t really sure how much worse it could get after having shot him in the arm, but she wasn’t waiting to find out. She marked the email as unread, logged into her own email account and sent the screenshot to Daniel. It was only when she reread the message that the name Christian sent off alarm bells inside her head. It looked very much as if they were getting closer to finding Sebastian.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some stuff about Lucy. Hope you enjoyed. :)


	17. The Usual

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe the little incident between Lucy and Lewis wasn't as damaging as could be feared.

“Where’s the usual place?” Kimi asked, looking between Lucy and Daniel once she had returned to the headquarters.

Lucy sighed. “I don’t know.”

“I thought you were monitoring Lewis before you started working for him,” Kimi said, unable to shake the feeling that these people were idiots.

“We were,” Daniel said, slowly. “We never really found anything out about Lewis. He didn’t _do_ much.”

“Or he knew you had recording devices on him and removed them without you realising,” Kimi said. He imagined that wouldn’t be that hard to do, if these pair were accurate representations of the organisation.

“That’s what I thought,” Lucy said. She felt so stupid. If it was the same Christian – and coincidences didn’t occur often in her line of work – then she’d been working alongside somebody who had connections, at least, with the NSO for months.

“What about tracing the address?” Kimi asked, leaning back in his chair and looking again at the email on his phone.

“The address doesn’t tell us much,” Daniel said. “And tracking where it came from could take days. I think we should go to this meeting tomorrow.”

“I see why you gained your role, cunning bastard,” Kimi said, emphasising the sarcasm to ensure it got through the stupidity.

“Hey,” Lucy said. “I’m sorry. He’s used to explaining things to me, he can’t help but talk like his audience is an idiot.”

Kimi nodded. That he could believe.

“You’ve got Hamilton alone, don’t you?” Kimi said, taking the strategy into his own hands. “I can go and find out where ‘the usual’ is.”

“No,” Daniel said, immediately. “If he is with the NSO and they find out you've gone and done something to him, they have Sebastian.”

Kimi glared at him, annoyed to find himself agreeing for once.

“Lucy can find out from Hamilton,” Daniel said.

“Me?”

“He already knows you’re not what you say you are,” Daniel said. “Putting anybody else in there is just stupid. Limiting possibilities.”

Again, Kimi had to agree with Daniel. That was beginning to make him feel a little sick.

“Daniel, I _can’t_ do that,” Lucy insisted, but Kimi was nodding and Daniel had that winning smile on his face and she knew exactly what was going to happen.

 

Fogginess had given way. The wound in his arm was still nothing more than a dull throb, but Lewis was aware of where he stopped and his surroundings started, and that was an improvement. He was no longer a fuzzy grey void and he _was_ grateful for that, but he still had his arms strapped to his side and his feet strapped together. He was still alone – trapped – in what he had a suspicion was Lucy Windford’s spare room.

There was that click again, much closer than he had thought it was the last time he had heard it. Lewis squeezed his eyes shut, trying to keep himself calm, but it was no use. What had she done to Sebastian? What was she going to do to _him_?

“Good, you’re awake.” Lucy’s heart was beating so hard she thought it might break something, and she had to wait outside the bedroom for a couple of moments to calm down. She envied Daniel and his ability to put on a smile at any moment, but she pushed on her best attempt as she went into the room. “Mr Hamilton?”

“Lucy,” Lewis said, before he realised he had no idea what he could say next. “Lucy?”

Lucy sat on the edge of the bed again, looking down at the fresh bandage on Lewis’s arm.

“You missed a meeting today,” she said.

“A meeting? You- you think I give a fuck about a bloody- Ah!”

Slight pressure on the wound turned the dull throb into a fire that couldn’t be ignored. It was a reaction Lucy had been expecting. She took her hand away and let Lewis settle back until she was being glared at again.

“They sent an email – a rather unprofessional one – when you didn’t arrive,” she continued. “I think you know what meeting I’m talking about, don’t you? Whoever it was seemed very annoyed when you didn’t show up. But, don’t worry, they rearranged the meeting for tomorrow. Where’s the usual place, Mr Hamilton?”

“Fuck you.”

Lucy sighed and held a finger poised over Lewis’s bandages, the other hand under her chin. “Well, that was a rather stupid answer, don’t you think? I’m the only one that knows you’re here.”

“They’ll come looking for me.”

“”And how long do you think they’ll be?” Lucy asked. “How long do you think you’ll last?”

She brought the finger down on the wound again, slowly pressing down harder and harder as Lewis’s face twisted and contorted. It was no longer than a couple of seconds, but Lewis was panting for breath once released, having held it to stop himself screaming.

“Where is the usual place?”

“Keep trying, but I’m not telling you anything,” Lewis hissed, the pain in his arm not subsiding quite as quickly as it had risen.

“Well, in that case.” Lucy stood and left the room, returning moments later with the gun. The image looked strange to Lewis, like two pictures sliced together, but it still had his eyes wide. She held it carefully – properly, not like they did in Hollywood films but in a way Lewis recognised from experience in darker parts of his life. Experience told him this wasn’t going to end well.

“Lucy, please, just listen.”

“You want to talk now?” Lucy asked.

Lewis – stupidly, in Lucy’s opinion – replied with silence, struggling uselessly against the tape that kept his arms strapped tight to his side and his legs still.

“Mr Hamilton, if you’re not going to help then I’m afraid you’re little more than a nuisance,” Lucy said. “And I’ve got more important things to be dealing with than you. You’ve got until the count of three to tell me what I need to know, or you’ll die.”

Lewis tugged more urgently on the bonds, as if three seconds was enough time to make an escape.

“One.”

She wouldn’t shoot him though. Lucy was just a kid-

“Two.”

One that had kidnapped and done god knew what to Sebastian and looked fully prepared to do the same to-

“Three.”

“Ok!” Lewis cried. “Ok! I’ll tell you what you want.”

 

“I want to see him,” Kimi said, darkly, but he knew that wasn’t going to happen. Daniel didn’t even bother to respond. This was better than he could have hoped for. Maybe they weren’t going to have to do the impossible after all. Who they would send to the meeting, he wasn’t sure yet, but all he had a do to work out the details.

“Did Lewis know about you and Sebastian?” he asked, still trying to figure out how the NSO could have known that information.

“No,” Kimi said certainly. Sebastian had been desperate for his boss to not find out and there was no way he could have.

“Ok,” Daniel said, not sure if he should expect an explanation for that but quickly accepting the fact he wasn’t going to get one. “I don’t feel comfortable with you going there.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Kimi said.

The meeting place was the Bus Stop café, a café on the other side of town. Lucy had even found out the name of the person they were heading to meet.

Someone knocked on the door and, before Kimi could call them in, it swung open. Fernando and Mark stood in the doorway, not sure they wanted to cross the threshold.

“Hey,” Mark said with a cheerful smile. “We just wanted to let you know that we’re getting off now, unless there’s something you want us to do…”

They’d been preparing to leave for fifteen minutes, but neither had wanted to be the one to bring this fact to Kimi’s attention.

“No, no, you guys can go,” Kimi said, waving them away.

“See,” Fernando muttered as he pulled Mark down the corridor. “Do not even know why we had to come in.”

“Wait a second!” Kimi called. He’d had an idea.

Fernando froze. Kimi couldn’t possibly have heard him.

“You live opposite The Bus Stop café, don’t you?” Kimi said.

“Yeah,” Mark said, slowly.

Kimi smiled and looked up at Daniel. Daniel’ grinned back.

 

“It closes on Saturday mornings,” Mark said, shifting uncomfortably in the chair Kimi had provided for him. He wasn't used to coming into Kimi’s office and to be here – knowing there was something very wrong going on – didn’t make him feel good. “Seems like a bit bad business sense to me, but there you go. The owner’s daughter uses it on Saturdays. She’s got this little business selling beauty products, like from the magazines, and she has little party things at the café on the Saturday. _Not_ that _I_ spy on them. Fernando thinks she’s hot.”

“Don’t act like you don’t think that too,” Fernando said. “She is.”

“Has she got a name?” Kimi asked.

Mark shrugged. “We’ve never actually _met_ her,” he said. “We only know what goes on there because we asked the owner once.”

“Have you ever seen Lewis Hamilton there?” Daniel asked, drawing their attention to him for the first time.

“Who?”

Kimi took the paper from earlier in the week and found the picture of the entrepreneur. Fernando’s face lit up.

“Is her boyfriend.”

“Well, we don’t _know_ that,” Mark cut in quickly.

“Always arrives late and leaves long after everyone else is gone,” Fernando said.

“What do they do in there?” Daniel asked.

Fernando laughed and was about to answer when Mark cut in. “We don’t know.”

“Three guesses though,” Fernando muttered.

Kimi looked up at Daniel, dismissing the writers with a wave of his hand. He got the feeling Hamilton and this woman didn’t get up to anything Fernando had in mind.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress is pretty fast and I think I should be finished soon (I'm a good few chapters ahead of you guys though, it's not over yet!)


	18. The First Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The phone call is made for the first name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another very short chapter (sorry). Will post again very soon to make up for this. :)

“Is there anything you would like?” Christian asked. Sebastian hadn’t moved for hours and it was beginning to worry him. “I mean, besides the obvious.” He gave a small chuckle, hoping to at least turn the edges of Sebastian’s frown upwards, but there was no reaction. “A bed? Books? A radio, if you’d like?”

Nothing. He was sat in the middle of the room, his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms tightly wrapped around them. Christian sighed and sat beside him.

“I’m not going to let them hurt you, you know,” he said, hoping that was something like a comfort. “What I said to Räikkönen- that was just a threat. I’d never let that happen.”

“He was with her, wasn’t he?” Sebastian croaked, the tears in his eyes finally spilling over. “When you took me, he was with her.”

“We don’t know where he was,” Christian said. “But… it’s likely.”

“No,” Sebastian whispered. “He loves me.”

Christian patted Sebastian on the back, his voice stuck in his throat. Sebastian didn’t react to his touch, still staring at the wall in front of him.

“I’ll get you a mattress to sleep on,” he said, quietly. “And some books.”

Sebastian didn’t say anything when Christian stood. He looked down at the youngster, shaking his head a little at what was going on, but there was nothing he could do but go along with it. He turned and crossed the room quickly, needing to go somewhere where he could breath and phone his family. He needed to make sure they were ok.

“He loves me,” Sebastian said as Christian reached for the door. His voice was shaky, but more confident than Christian had expected, making him turn. Sebastian was looking right at him, still shaking, still with tears rolling down his face, but his eyes were clear and focused. “I wouldn’t be here if he didn’t.”

Christian took a deep breath, unable to hold Sebastian’s eye. “I’m sorry,” he said, eyes on the floor, then hurried out of the room before he could break down.

Sunday, 8.59 am.

There was only Kimi at the office. Sat in Jenson's chair. Waiting.

This was ridiculous, he knew, but he didn’t have much choice.

He just needed to keep playing their game long enough for him to catch them out. Hopefully that wouldn’t be much longer.

The phone was halfway through the first chirp when he answered it.

“Mr Räikkönen?” 

It was the same person as yesterday. Kimi held his breath for a moment, struggling to find words.

“Yes.”

“Do you have a name for me, Mr Räikkönen?” 

“Let me speak to Sebastian,” Kimi said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.

“Name first, then you can speak to him.”

Kimi looked down at the name he had written down in his diary. He thought for a moment about denying it, but he knew that was never going to happen, and mumbled the name down the phone. He had no idea why they wanted the name and he didn’t care.

“Let me speak to Sebastian.”

“Here.” 

There was a couple of seconds’ silence and Kimi waited with his breath held until:

“Kimi?” 

His voice was so small Kimi could barely hear it and he found himself pushing the phone closer to his ear, the shaking breaths that rattled down the phone louder than the word.

“I’m here Seb, it’s going to be ok,” Kimi said. “I promise everything will be ok.”

“You love me, don’t you Kimi?” Sebastian whispered.

“Of course I love you,” Kimi said, trying to keep his voice level. He needed to stay calm. “I love you and I’m going to find you.”

“They’re going to hurt you,” Sebastian said, tears clear in his voice. “He said you killed one of his friends and you tried to kill one of your own friends and he’s saying these horrible things.”

“Seb, it’s ok,” Kimi said, his grip on the phone much tighter. “They’re not going to hurt me. I promise.”

“But you can’t promise that,” Sebastian whined.

“I can and I have and I’m going to keep it,” Kimi said. “Because I love you.”

“I love you too.” Sebastian whispered, before the phone was taken away from him and Kimi was listening to a dead tone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look forward to your thoughts!  
> Please ignore minor mistake that I have just changed (it's a long story)


	19. The Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel and Kimi both think it's best that Lucy goes to the meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter. And another new character. (I think this might be the last new character)

Mark was awake a long time before Fernando, but he didn’t have the will power to move. Fernando’s back was pressed up against his chest, keeping him warm since, once again, the Spaniard had kicked the blankets away even though it was absolutely freezing. Mark reached lazily for the covers and dragged them back over himself, but he knew he had no intentions of going back to sleep.

The safety he had felt from being close to Kimi was gone. If they could take Sebastian, they could take any of them. And it was all going on so close to them. Whatever was going on was happening only across the road from their house, in the café he could see if he craned his neck a little and peered out of the window. Maybe it was coincidence they were so close. Maybe not.

It felt like the danger was watching them. Waiting for them.

 _That’s a good line for an article_.

Unable to pass up the opportunity to channel the unusual feeling of fear, Mark leaned over the side of the bed and took to his laptop, glad he’d emailed himself the article before he left the office.

Fernando woke to the gentle tapping of keys. Keeping his eyes shut, he reached behind him, finding Mark’s hand on the keyboard and squeezed it. Mark smiled and leaned over to kiss Fernando’s cheek before quickly returning to his work.

Fernando sighed at the lack of attention and rolled onto his back, watching Mark sat next to him and turning his head so he could see what Mark was writing.

“Think there’s much point?” he asked.

“I think we should keep doing what we’re paid to do whilst Kimi sorts this whole mess out,” Mark said, quietly, not looking away from his work. “He’ll only be annoyed if we don’t.”

“Do you think he can sort this out?” Fernando asked. He knew Mark knew more than he said about what was going on but, for whatever reason, he’d decided not to tell Fernando. The fact Mark wasn’t packing a bag and telling him to do the same told him they had nothing to worry about, but he couldn’t stop himself. After everything that had happened after Michael, he didn’t think he could go through all that again.

“Of course he can,” Mark said, without a shadow of a doubt. “Now are you making breakfast or am I?”

Fernando looked up at him hopefully.

“You do know if I’m making breakfast you’re just getting burnt toast,” Mark said.

“Burnt toast it is then,” Fernando said.

Mark rolled his eyes, but he saved his work and went to get started on something vaguely edible.

 

“What time do you think she’ll get here?” Kimi asked, watching the street outside, and the café, from Mark and Fernando’s bedroom window an hour later.

Mark shrugged. “She doesn’t usually come today. She gets here on Saturdays at about half ten, though. So I guess she could get here any time.” It was already half eleven.

“Drives?”

“Walks, or walks down this street anyway,” Mark said. That didn’t tell Kimi much. There was no parking on the street, so she could easily have just parked around the corner. He had Jenson in the car park on the next street keeping an eye out in case that happened.

Daniel had, much to her annoyance, decided Lucy was their best option. If she just kept her cover as Lewis’ assistant, the NSO never needed to know anything was wrong. Kimi had mentally acknowledged that the strategist was starting to do a lot of things he would have done, but hadn’t told Daniel this yet. He had no plans to, either.

“Do you two want anything to drink?” Mark offered, feeling increasingly uncomfortable in his own home.

“No, thanks,” Daniel said, scanning the street. Kimi didn’t even reply.

Mark sighed, and decided to leave them to it. He’d given them a description of the woman. He wasn’t needed anymore.

Fernando was in the study, keeping out of the way, though he was in no mood to work. He’d considered going out for a run, to try to clear his head from all this that was going on, but Kimi didn’t want them leaving the house. Whatever was going on, Fernando just wanted it to be over, quickly.

Mark gave him a worn smile as he came into the office. No matter how hard Fernando tried to disguise it, it was clear he was freaking out inside. It was going to be a long day.

 

When Lucy spotted Susie across the café, she calmed a little. There was somebody there. She wasn’t alone. She knew Daniel and Kimi were watching from across the street, but it wasn’t the same as having somebody in the café with her. The woman wasn’t here yet and Lucy was sat by the window, shaking as she drank her tea. Nope. Nope, she was never doing field work again, no matter how desperate Daniel said he was.

Plan: somehow find out who, and quite possibly where, Christian was from this woman, find him, find Sebastian, get Sebastian, get the information from Kimi, leave. She had a feeling things weren’t going to go to plan, but there was still the possibility, and she had reason to be hopeful.

Daniel – _She’s just coming down the road now. Should be with you in twenty seconds._

Lucy looked up from her phone to find one of the most beautiful looking women she had ever met walking into the café. She walked with a confidence Lucy knew she was never going to be able to pull off, grinning at the man behind the counter as she made her way across the small seating area. Lucy met Susie’s eye. She was thankful her friend looked as shocked as she was.

Lucy turned to her phone.

_Good looking isn’t she?_

The woman, behind her smile, was annoyed. She cast her eyes over her parents’ café and Lucy quickly looked down at the tea she had been served.

Daniel – _Hmmm. Suppose._

Lucy rolled her eyes and put the phone away.

Find out who and where Christian was, find him, find Sebastian, get Sebastian, get the information, leave.

God, she hoped it was as simple as that.

The woman sat at a table by the window and Lucy followed her over. She stood, awkwardly waiting to be acknowledged whilst the woman drank her coffee until it became obvious that Lucy was waiting for her. She smiled up at Lucy, confused, waiting for her to say something. Lucy tried to force one onto her own face, but it wasn’t working.

“Can I help you, sweetie?”

“Yes,” Lucy said. “You’re waiting for Lewis Hamilton, right?”

The woman’s smile fell a little and her eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

Lucy fell into the seat opposite the woman. “I’m his assistant, Lucy. Mr Hamilton hasn’t been in the office recently. He’s not feeling well. So I’m taking his meetings.”

“Lucy…?”

“Lucy Windford,” she said, offering her hand for the woman to shake.

She eyed it sceptically but shook Lucy’s hand. “Cindy Kennedy.” She pulled away quickly and sat back in the chair. “Where’s Lewis again?”

“Bed ridden,” Lucy said. “We’re sorry he couldn’t come. And I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find anything about the meeting so I’m completely unprepared.”

She held out her hands with a sheepish grin. Cindy’s patient smile was back, but Lucy got the feeling Lewis was going to be in a lot of trouble when all this was over.

“Lewis owes my boss a lot of money,” Cindy explained, slowly.

“He’s an investor?” Lucy asked.

“Of sorts, honey, of sorts,” Cindy said, humming to herself as she took another drink of the coffee. “So really, all I’m here for is to collect the money.”

Lucy sighed and twisted her hands together. “Sorry it’s been a wasted journey then.”

“No, sweetie, you’ve just got to transfer the money over,” Cindy said.

“I can’t really do that,” Lucy said.

“Excuse me?”

Lucy glanced over at Susie, who was watching from behind a book.

“I’d have to get some evidence of the payment,” Lucy said. “Or go to see Mr Hamilton. You’ve got to understand that I can’t just hand money over to anybody, and I couldn’t find any relevant details at the office. Maybe you have some?”

Cindy’s smile fell into a cold glare and Lucy wished she hadn’t left her drink at the other table. At least that would give her something to look at rather than her shoes. When her eyes flicked back up to Cindy, she was smiling again, but she was making no attempt to disguise it as real and it made Lucy cringe.

“Of course,” she said, her voice sickly sweet. “There are some things back at the office.”

“Do you want to go back to get the things then we can meet back at Hamilton Offices?” Lucy suggested. Jenson could follow her back to the office and Lucy would give him a bit of time to snoop about whilst Cindy was out.

“Honey, why don’t you just come to my office with me,” Cindy said. “Hamilton offices are halfway across town. It’ll be faster if I driver us.”

“I- I don’t know,” Lucy said, glancing over at Susie. The older woman smiled weakly at her and nodded. She would be safe. “Yeah, sure. It makes sense.”

 

Jenson was waiting in his car when Lucy followed Cindy into the car park. He saw her glance in his direction, but she quickly turned away when Cindy turned to speak to her. Taking the eyes off of the pair for ten seconds, he sent a text to Kimi, then started the car and followed Cindy’s out of the car park.

 

Lucy was certain her nervousness was obvious, but Cindy was paying no attention to that, taking them away from the café quickly. Lucy was trying to keep track of where she was being taken, but didn’t recognise any of the streets anymore. Behind her, Jenson was following, which was oddly comforting, but she was still alone in the car.

“So, how did you end up doing this kind of thing?” she asked, hoping the question could be considered casual conversation.

“Ah, Christian and I go well back,” Cindy said.

“What does he do then?” Lucy asked.

“Oh, just investing,” Cindy asked, waving a hand a little and flashing Lucy another smile.

Lucy couldn’t help noticing the speed of the car pick up a little and she bit her lip.

 

“Yes, I’m _following_ them,” Jenson snapped, one hand on the steering wheel, the other pressing his phone to his ear. He wished Daniel would hand the phone back to Kimi, but clearly his boss was elsewhere, otherwise Daniel wouldn’t even have had the phone. “I don’t know where we’re heading but we just passed the Rowley Estate- shit.”

They were going fast. These were the narrow suburban roads Jenson had raced down when he was young and senseless and with complete lack of respect for personal safety. Theirs seemed to be the only two cars on the road and Jenson fell back to try to follow at a safer distance, the needle on the speedometer still too far to the right for his liking.

“Are you coming or not?” Jenson asked, trying to stay calm. “Because if not, I could do without – shit!”

An oncoming car came around the corner and Jenson swerved out of the way and off of the road, coming to a stop halfway through the fence of an empty children’s playground. For half a second he thought he might have died. He stayed perfectly still, taking a moment to realise what had happened. Once he knew for certain he was still alive, he slumped back in the car. He groaned – at the car, at himself, and at the situation in general – then glared down at the still connected phone.

Cindy’s car was gone by the time he looked up.

“Fuck sake.”


	20. The Basement Flat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy goes with Cindy to collect the things from the office, only she doesn't trust Cindy, and she seems to have good reason for that.

Whoever this Christian was, he didn’t like to seem flashy, Lucy thought, as she followed Cindy down a deserted residential street a little way out of town. The houses were tall terraces, each with steps leading down to basement flats. None of them looked particularly welcoming, or where an investor might decide to set up an office. Jenson was nowhere to be seen when she glanced behind her, but she tried to stay calm, fumbling with the phone in her pocket whist she waited for the phone call.

Cindy turned back to her, her smile no longer fake but still no more comforting. “You look cold.”

“It is a little,” Lucy said. She pulled out her phone, so glad to see it was Daniel ringing that she physically grinned.

“Someone special?” Cindy asked, stopping and waiting for Lucy to catch up.

“Boyfriend,” Lucy lied, answering the call. “Sorry, he never phones unless it’s important. Hi.”

“Lucy where are you?”

“What’s happened this time?” Lucy asked, still smiling.

“Jenson lost the car. Where are you?”

“Can’t this wait until later, I’m supposed to be working,” Lucy said with a small laugh, glancing up to see Cindy was waiting patiently, and amused smile on her face. “Then tell me now.”

“Kimi wants to come and find you,” Daniel said. “I’ve told him no, but I still need to know where you are. Just give me an address or something.”

“Fine, fine,” Lucy said, before turning to Cindy. “Where are we?”

“Excuse me?” Cindy asked, not quite as disgusted this time, but just as confused.

“My boyfriend. He’s got big news which _apparently_ cannot wait and cannot be told over the phone,” Lucy said. “Where are we?”

“Corporation Road,” Cindy said.

“Corporation Road,” Lucy repeated into the phone. “I’ll text you the house number.”

“Be safe, Lucy,” Daniel said.

Lucy shivered, trying to keep the smile on her face. Daniel sounded worried. Worried about _her_.

“I will do,” Lucy said. “Bye.”

She put the phone away and smiled weakly up at Cindy. Cindy smiled back, then led her down the street.

“How long have you been together?” she asked.

“A couple of months,” Lucy said, wishing Cindy would drop the subject. She could already feel her cheeks beginning to warm and she could do without this line of inquiry. “Odd place to have an office, isn’t it? Do you live here?”

“Yeah,” Cindy said, leading Lucy on down the street. “It’s not a big business, so I do my work from home most of the time. And Christian prefers to keep quiet. It’s not the kind of business you put out adverts for.”

That was obvious. The building Cindy stopped in front of looked like it hadn’t been lived in for years, but the rusty metal gate didn’t creak when it was opened and the steps that led down to the basement flat weren’t blocked by rubbish like most of the others. It looked strange, somebody as glamourous as Cindy disappearing down the steps, and Lucy could feel her heart beating in her throat again as she waited at the top, fumbling to text the house number to Daniel.

Cindy looked up at her when she realised Lucy wasn’t following.

“I’ll wait outside,” Lucy said, in explanation. “It shouldn’t take long, should it?”

“Nah, come inside out of the cold, sweetie,” Cindy said, holding out a hand for Lucy to take. “I’ll get you a drink whilst you wait.”

Lucy bit her lip, but she knew she didn’t have any reason to wait outside – besides the fact Cindy could very well be leading her into a trap – so she took Cindy’s hand and followed her into the flat.

Beyond the dilapidated outer walls, inside was strangely well presented. It looked like a show home, warm colours surrounding them from the walls and the furniture, faded pink stains on the carpet were the only signs that somebody lived here. The front door led into what could be mistaken as a family area, but it was too neat and tidy to think that a family lived here, much like Lucy’s own flat in Victoria Tower. A little too much like Lucy’s own flat. It wasn’t much of a home. There was no mess, no photos on the walls, no remote control for the television on the arm of the chair or sneaking under the sofa. Light flooded in from a window in the kitchen at the back of the flat, which Cindy quickly headed into.

“Drink?” she called back into the living room, where Lucy was still stood, a little in awe.

“Um, yeah, tea, please,” Lucy said, automatically. She was still trying figure out what was going on here. Maybe they had made a mistake and the two people weren’t the same Christian. It was a possibility. This Christian was, almost certainly, standing on the wrong side of the law, but how unlikely was it really that Lewis had received help from a shady businessman when he had first started up? It would explain why the meetings weren’t in the schedule.

“How do you take it?” Cindy asked.

“Milk no sugar,” Lucy called back, wondering around the room a little bit. It still didn’t seem right to her.

“Here.” Cindy returned to the room with a mug and her signature smile.

Lucy tried to return it as she took the mug, drinking quickly so Cindy couldn’t see it was fake. The tea was hot and burnt her lips, but she drank anyway. Cindy’s smile grew.

“Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’ll go and get the things from the office.”

Thankfully, Cindy disappeared, and Lucy continued her inspection of the flat with the mug close to her face, keeping her warm. Besides the kitchen and the door Cindy had disappeared through, there was one other door leading off of the living room, and inside Lucy found a bedroom, as impersonal as the rest of the house and missing the mattress from the bare bed frame. She frowned, flicking the switch of the light as the natural light from the kitchen didn’t reach this far, and drank more of the tea now it had cooled down a little and she was no longer burning her tongue. The wardrobe was empty, as were bedside draws. There was definitely something wrong going on here.

The door slammed shut behind her and she dropped the mug as she leapt across the room to try the door, but it was locked.

“Cindy?” she called, uncertainly, still preying against common sense that this was a mistake. “Cindy?”

“Let’s wait and see which of your friends are going to come rescue you, _sweetie_ ,” Cindy called through the door.

Lucy groaned at her own stupidity and uselessly kicked the door. This- _this_ was why she shouldn’t be allowed to do this kind of thing. How could she be some stupid?

Kimi was on his way. She couldn’t lead Kimi to them.

The mobile blinked its lack of bars up at her. No signal. Of course.

“Cindy, what’s going on?” she called, pleading ignorance, hopefully.

“I think you know what’s going on,” Cindy called back, laughing a little. “Why don’t you take a nap? By the time you wake up this will all be over.”

“What are you- oh.” Lucy sighed and looked down at the now empty mug, tea soaking into the carpet. If this wasn’t going to convince them to not send her into the field, she didn’t know what would. She sat down, her back against the door. There was nothing she could do about it now. The phone in her hands still had no signal and it was unlikely Kimi would listen to her anyway. She just hoped he had more sense than she did.

 


	21. The Cinema

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rob knows Felipe needs his help, but does he always know the right thing to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS CHAPTER HURT SO MUCH TO WRITE. OK, NOT EVEN THE CHAPTER, THE LAST PART. YOU'LL KNOW THE PART. IT'S NOT EVEN DISTRESSING, REALLY. NOTHING BY MY USUAL STANDARDS, BUT IT TOOK ME NEARLY A DAY TO WRITE THREE PARAGRAPHS.  
> I apologise for that, but I needed to stress how much stress this chapter (THOSE PARAGRAPHS!) gave me.  
> Anyway, enjoy the chapter.

“Is it just us and Mr Smedley going to the cinema?” Felipinho asked as Felipe led him across the car park towards the building.

“I think so,” Felipe said. “And Ivy, Do you remember Ivy?”

“Yeah,” Felipinho said. His face broke into a grin when he saw his teacher waiting outside the cinema and pulled his father behind him in his rush to get over to him.

“Careful! This is a car park,” Felipe shouted, pulling Felipinho out of the road and between two parked cars. “What have I said about running in the road? Have to look first.”

“Sorry,” Felipinho mumbled.

“Would be sorry if you got hit by a car, wouldn’t you?” Felipe snapped, jerking his son’s arm as he marched through the car park. “Would be sorry if you couldn’t play with your friends? Cannot run in the road.”

They made it across the car park and Felipinho pulled his hand out of Felipe’s, running to a confused looking Rob. Rob crouched down in front of the child, wiping the tears from his eyes, and Felipe froze, anger being replaced by guilt.

“What’s the matter, hey?” Rob asked, quietly, lifting Felipinho’s chin.

“Daddy’s shouted at me,” Felipinho whispered.

“And why did he do that?” Rob asked.

“Don’t know,” Felipinho said.

“I think you do know, don’t you?” Rob said, resting a hand on the child’s shoulder. Felipinho rubbed his eyes and Rob brought a tissue from his pocket to hand to him. “You shouldn’t run in the road. Remember the stop, look, and listen song?”

Felipinho nodded.

“Right,” Rob said, smiling. “Why don’t you go inside? Ivy’s already at the pick and mix. Get a cup and fill it up. Fill one up for Daddy too.”

“Ok,” Felipinho said, quietly, heading inside.

“Felipinho?” Felipe called, but his son ignored him and did as his teacher said. Rob stood and sighed.

“What’s wrong, Felipe?”

What was wrong? Beside the fact that everybody he had trusted had lied to him and he’d barely had able to sleep again because what if whoever had taken Sebastian came for him? He shook his head and looked up at Rob. Rob saw the same look in his eyes as he had seen in his son’s and gave him a weak smile.

“Is it still work?” he asked. Felipe nodded, letting Rob put an arm over his shoulder and pull him into a hug. He pressed his face against Rob’s shoulder, trying to stop himself from crying because the last thing he needed right now was to bring another person into this mess. He just wanted to go to the cinema, watch the film, and buy some incredibly unhealthy fast food for dinner. Rob patted him on the back, uselessly. He wished they were closer. Felipe could feel comfortable with him and open up to him and then Rob could try to help, because there was clearly something wrong and Rob got the impression it had nothing to do with road safety. He should have had the guts to speak to him months ago. “Have you spoken to them yet?”

Felipe shook his head, pulling away from Rob. What did he look like? If he kept up like this he’d have social services round saying he couldn’t cope.

“Maybe you should try talking to them,” Rob said. “Or somebody. It’s obviously something important.”

Felipe gave him a weak smile, but the more he tried to smile the more he wanted to cry. Who was there to talk to?

“Isn’t Felipinho’s fault,” he said, quietly. “Shouldn’t have over reacted.”

“I know,” Rob said, walking beside him as they went into the cinema. “Look at it this way: I doubt he’s going to be running in the road any time soon. Don’t worry about it. He’ll forgive you. He loves you.”

The five year old was over at the pick and mix, Ivy helping him get the sweets from the buckets nearer the top. Felipe watched them whilst Rob brought the tickets. How was he supposed to talk to Kimi about Michael when he couldn’t say sorry to his own kid? Felipinho was obviously ignoring him, holding his cup of pick and mix in one hand and Ivy’s hand in the other as they went into the screen. Rob let the kids chose the seat and followed them down a row of chairs near the front, bringing Felipe behind him.

“By the end of the film, he’ll have forgotten all about it,” he whispered into Felipe’s ear as the hour of adverts before the film began.

“Don’t think I’ve ever shouted at him like that,” Felipe said. “Must know something is wrong.”

“Shush!” Ivy hissed, making Felipinho erupt into giggles.

“Does that sound like a child who thinks something’s wrong?” Rob asked with a grin.

 

“Need to toilet,” Felipinho said as they left the screen. They’d waited through the credits because Ivy had insisted there was an extra scene at the end. She’d been right, and was now skipping up the aisle between the seats. “Need to toilet, _now_.”

“Come on then,” Felipe said. Rob was glad to see the smile on his face as they hurried down the hall, Felipinho running into the toilet. Rob got into a small argument with Ivy over going into the men’s toilet and eventually agreed to let her into the women’s on her own (“seeing as I’m _nine_ now and _everything._ ”). Felipe was waiting by the sinks, Felipinho having insisted on doing it himself.

“See,” Rob said, leaning against one of the basins and grinning at Felipe.

“Suppose so,” Felipe said. “Should maybe listen to you more often.”

“Maybe,” Rob said, his heart thudding in his chest when he realised they were alone. He pushed himself away from the sinks, pushing a hand through his hair and trying to shake his nerves. Of everything he had ever done in his life, he’d have thought this wouldn’t be high on his list of scariest moments, but here he was, acting like a teenage girl _again._ “You could listen to me now.”

“Hmmm?”

“Close your eyes, ok?” Rob said, his voice shaking a little. Felipe laughed, uncertainly, but closed his eyes as Rob had told him to. His brain was still filled with so many thoughts about Kimi and Michael and Felipinho that he didn’t acknowledge that Rob was holding his hands, sweaty palms pushed against his. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

_If I want you to-_

It was barely more than a brush of lips to begin with, but it shocked Felipe into stillness and he let Rob continue, slowly adding pressure, slowly deepening it. Felipe’s eyes shot open at the first touch, but Rob’s were closed and Felipe wondered if he would actually stopped if asked.

He couldn’t. Not now. Not with everything going on. This wasn’t fair.

Felipe pulled away less than a second after Rob had started what he’d wanted to start a very long time ago. Panic consumed Rob’s face immediately and he stepped away to give Felipe some space. Felipe just stared at him, at his lips, and it was only when he had to reach out to the nearest basin to steady himself that he realised he was shaking. Rob bit his lip, struggling through various apologies in his head, but nothing seemed right.

“I should- Ivy will be waiting,” he said, eventually, not waiting for Felipe’s reply before he darted out of the toilets.

There was a few moments of silence whist Felipe stood, slightly dazed, alone, trying to figure out what had just happened. Because… because he was pretty sure Rob had just kissed him.

The flushing of a toilet shocked Felipe back into wakefulness and Felipinho emerged, still with the grin on his face.

Rob had been right about Felipinho.

By the time the child had washed his hands and they went outside, Rob and Ivy had gone.

 


	22. The rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nobody's entirely sure what's happened to Lucy, but Daniel isn't going to let her go.

Every times Daniel phoned, it just went straight to answer phone and if she didn’t pick up right now, he was going to go mad. He was such an idiot. How could he have let something like this happen? A hopeful part of him brain told him maybe Jenson’s crash was just an accident, but she’d known she was being followed. He’d fucked up. Again.

Susie slammed the front door shut, making Daniel jump up from the table. Kimi raced down the stairs and swung into Fernando and Mark’s living room, having finally gotten off of the phone with Jenson.

“Where’s the address?”

“Corporation Road,” Daniel said quietly.

“Kimi, wait,” Susie said, sternly. “It’s a trap. They think she’s got something to do with you and they’re waiting for you to go. Kimi, you cannot go. You are not doing something stupid.”

Kimi glared at her, but Susie held his eye, her own gaze just as strong.

“This woman has phoned Valtteri,” she said. “She wants him to identify Lucy as one of us.”

“And what’s he going to do?” Kimi asked.

“Well, that depends on Daniel,” Susie said, turning to the strategist. “What’s the plan?”

Daniel stared at her as if she was mad. “Plan?”

“Daniel,” Susie said. She marched across the living room, sat on the sofa and pulled him down beside her. “You need to calm down. What are we going to do?”

“Um… um…” Think. Deep breaths. They wouldn’t let him do this if they didn’t think he could. “Valtteri doesn’t recognise her,” he said, wiping the tears that were beginning to form from his eyes. “Valtteri doesn’t recognise her and she’s nothing to do with Kimi. Just Lewis’ assistant. Then I’ll go and… and pick her up.”

“You?” Kimi asked.

Daniel nodded and closed his eyes, but he could still feel Kimi’s glare on him. “This woman’s expecting a guy to go and pick Lucy up. That’s how I found out the address,” he said. “I’ll go.”

Susie nodded and patted Daniel on the back as she stood. They were getting them into this too young, she thought. Not that she had been any older than Daniel when she had started, but the mind set was different.

“I’ll go and tell Valtteri what’s going on, ok?”

She watched Kimi as she crossed the room, hoping the hit man was gentle on Daniel. Kimi ignored her.

“We should have just watched from here,” Daniel whispered, watching Kimi return to the window seat to watch the street outside. “Should have just watched form here, waited for her to leave, then followed her. Then this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Because following her worked this time, didn’t it?” Kimi said, darkly. He turned to Daniel and saw the distress on his face. The kid wasn’t ready for this line of work. “Look, you did the right thing. You’re trying to get Sebastian back. That’s what you’ve been told to do and that’s what you’re doing.”

“But I risked Lucy. I shouldn’t have put her at risk.”

“I’m pretty sure this comes with the job,” Kimi said. “You did what I would have done.”

“You would have sent Sebastian over there, would you?”

“No, but…” Kimi’s mouth fell open a little.

Daniel blushed as soon as he realised what he had said and quickly shook his head, but there was no hiding it.

Kimi sighed. There was nothing comforting he could think of to say. “You should probably get over there soon.”

 

Valtteri looked down at Lucy, who was still unconscious. Cindy had let her out when he arrived and she was now lying on one of the sofas in the living room. Valtteri shook his head, his face blank.

“You are joking, right?” Cindy groaned, falling onto the second sofa with a glass of wine in her hand. Maybe it was a little early to start, but she was having a shit day and she didn’t care. Christian was going to be pissed at her.

“Never seen her before,” Valtteri said. “What did you say her name was?”

“Windford,” Cindy said, glaring at the girl. “Fuck, what do I do with her?”

This was why Christian didn’t let her get involved in anything that was important. Go and collect money from this person. Go and flirt with that guy. As soon as she could actually do something useful, _this_ happened.

“I’m going to phone Christian,” she said.

“Really?” Valtteri said. A half smile crept onto his face and he sat on the sofa beside Cindy, taking the glass from her before she could spill more wine on the floor and setting it on the floor. “You said yourself he was stressed. And it’s only just a small mistake. Don’t tell him. Tell her she fainted. She’d probably believe you. She can’t have had much about her if she let you lock her in the bedroom.”

“I guess so,” Cindy said, leaning on Valtteri as she reached for her wine. She didn’t get up once she had it, elbows on his thighs to keep herself up whilst she drank. He took the glass away from her again and put it out of her reach. “You’re too good for me.”

“Know this,” Valtteri said. He struggled to keep his smirk off of his face. People always told him he looked like he was in pain when he smiled like that, and that wasn’t the impression he wanted to give.

There was somebody knocking on the door and Cindy jumped up to answer it.

“You don’t think it’s Christian, do you?” she asked, stopping before she reached the door.

“Probably not,” Valtteri said. “Is busy.”

“Yeah,” she said, brushing the creases from her clothes. “Yeah of course.”

She smiled as she opened the door.

Never had she met somebody who was able to match her smile. But then, she had never met Daniel.

“Hi, I’m looking for Lucy,” Daniel said. “She said she was here.”

“Ah, you must be the boyfriend,” Cindy said. “Maybe you should come inside.”

Daniel stood on the doorstep for a moment. Go inside and fall for the same thing Lucy had fallen for? That would make him an even bigger idiot.

But he followed Cindy inside anyway, because what else could he do?

“She fainted,” Cindy said, gesturing down to Lucy on the sofa. The girl let out a small moan. The drugs were beginning to wear off. “But she seems to be alright now.”

“Lucy?” Daniel crouched down beside his college, trying to keep the fear out his voice. _Fainted_.

Lucy frowned, groaning again as she came back to the waking world. “Daniel?”

“You fainted, Lucy,” he said, quietly, quickly. “Cindy here helped you. _Remember_. It’s probably due to over exhaustion. You work too hard.”

“Wha- I didn’t-“

“Lucy,” Daniel said sternly, hoping enough of her was awake to realise what was going on. “Come on, let’s get you in the car.”

“But Daniel,” Lucy said, confused.

“Come on,” he said, lifting her. The drugs were still wearing off and she stumbled into him as soon as he let her go. His smile returning a little, Daniel lifted her, one arm under the knees and one on her back. Lucy, only more confused, wrapped an arm over Daniel’ shoulder and let him carry her out. Daniel nodded his thanks to Cindy and Valtteri, promising to make sure she was alright, before leaving quickly. He was going to have a lot of explaining to do.


	23. The fear of field work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel has a plan, but Lucy doesn't want anything to do with it. She probably isn't going to get her way.

“I didn’t _faint_ ,” Lucy said, sitting up to take the water from Daniel. She was still a little dizzy, but she felt much better.

“We know, Lucy,” Daniel said, quietly, sitting on the sofa next to her and rubbing her back. Lucy frowned at the touch, but let him.

“Did she say anything about Sebastian?” Kimi asked.

“No,” Lucy said, ignoring Daniel’ mumbles of being too ill to do this now. “No, she mentioned Christian, though. Said he invested in Lewis' business when he started up.”

“Valtteri said she’s not working for the NSO,” Susie said, standing in the doorway. “She’s working for Christian, and Christian works for the NSO, he’s certain of that. She’s no idea what’s going on, but she’s close to Christian. She’s close to Lewis too. Seems maybe Fernando was right about those too.”

“Don’t let him here you say that,” Kimi muttered. “So, we get this woman-“

“Cindy,” Lucy clarified.

“We get Cindy and do the swap?” Kimi asked.

“Christian isn’t the one leading this,” Susie said. “He wouldn’t risk getting his hands dirty with Sebastian. And Valtteri isn’t in deep enough to know who’s in charge personally.”

“But we find Christian, and we find out who is in charge,” Daniel said. “I think I might know how to find him.”

 

“I don’t- I don’t want to go back there,” Lucy mumbled from the sofa, wishing she had never invited Daniel back to the flat, but he didn’t have anywhere else to stay and he it was a waste of time going back to his flat when he could just stay on her sofa. He was watching her from the other end of the sofa, keeping his distance as if there was an invisible wall between them.

“I know, but I’ll be there for you this time,” Daniel said, quietly, holding the now cold cup of tea in one hand. “I’m not going to let that happen again.”

“Do you think there’s another way?” Lucy asked, glancing over at Daniel. He wasn’t looking at her.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “But I think this is the best way. And the sooner we get Sebastian back, the sooner this is over, right?”

Lucy nodded, but she couldn’t say anything. She just kept her gaze on her empty cup, waiting for an excuse to come. Waiting for a way out of this.

“Do you think they’ll let me go?” Lucy asked.

“Of course she’ll let you go, Lucy,” Daniel said. “Valtteri told her you were just-.”

“No, do you think _they_ ’ll let me go,” Lucy asked, glancing up at Daniel, but he still wasn’t looking at her. “Them upstairs.”

Daniel’ eyes shot up to her. “You want to leave?”

“I can’t do this, Daniel,” she whispered. She could feel his eyes on her but couldn’t lift her own eyes from her cup.

“You’ll go back behind the desk after this, though,” Daniel said, confused. “You’ll go back to looking at videos and so will I.”

“You’re made to do this job, Daniel,” Lucy said. “You fit so well doing this. Once you get your confidence you’re going to be dealing with things in less than a week. Me?”

“You weren’t made for field work, but you’re damn good at what you did before I dragged you out here,” Daniel said, moving over a little bit on the sofa. “And you can do this as well, Lucy. I know you can.”

Lucy rolled her eyes and looked up at Daniel, wondering what he saw to make him believe that because, whatever it was, she didn’t know about it. The first sign of trouble and she’d shot Lewis Hamilton – which Daniel kept telling her was a good thing, because otherwise they would never have found out about Cindy Kennedy, but that had never been the plan and she could well have ruined everything.

“You’re going to make me do it anyway, aren’t you?”

“I’m not going to make you do anything,” Daniel said, his smile back. It used to be a comfort, but it wasn’t anymore.

“No, you won’t _make_ me do anything,” Lucy said. “You’ll emotionally blackmail me into doing it and you won’t even notice, just like how you got me to come out here in the first place.”

“I didn’t blackmail you into doing anything,” Daniel said.

“No,” Lucy said, quietly. “Of course not.”

“You don’t have to do it tomorrow,” Daniel said. “We can think of another way. I don’t know…”

He was doing it again. The exact same thing that had made Lucy agree to get out from behind the desk in the first place. She sighed and put the empty mug down on the coffee table.

“I’m going to bed,” she said, leaving Daniel on the sofa. “You know where the blankets are, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Daniel said, quietly, his smile gone now. “Um… Lucy?” He stood, still holding the cold tea in one hand. Lucy stopped near the bedroom door, waiting for Daniel to speak again, but the words wouldn’t form in his brain, let alone in his throat. “Um, goodnight.”

“Good night, Daniel.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finished writing this now! So, unless I get hit by a bus or something, you're going to get the end of this story! Yay!


	24. The Second Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's another phone call and Lucy and Daniel put the plan into action

Sebastian wasn’t sure if he’d slept or not. He didn’t remember falling asleep or waking up, but nine o’clock came much sooner than it should have. He lay on the mattress with his eyes closed, listening to the sound of Christian arguing outside. He couldn’t hear another voice, and maybe the man had gone mad and was arguing to himself. It didn’t seem likely but he was allowed to be hopeful. The voice quietened and, seconds later, the door to the cell opened.

Sebastian opened his eyes and looked up at Christian from the mattress. He’d decided he wasn’t moving and Christian was just going to have to deal with that.

Christian was having a pretty bad day already. Lewis Hamilton was missing, and so was a large chunk of money from his bank account. His boss was also in a rather bad mood and had decided to take it out on _him_. Apparently the name was useless and the game they were playing with Räikkönen was no fun. Christian didn’t bother mentioning the fact that he never wanted to play any games, and wished they could just get on so he could let Sebastian go. Because Sebastian really didn’t deserve to be here.

So when Sebastian just lay on the mattress, glaring at Christian with hate filled eyes, Christian couldn’t really care less, because he had bigger things to deal with than Sebastian acting like a brat.

At least Räikkönen was playing the game. Räikkönen was the only one giving Christian a break at the moment.

He answered before the phone even started ringing.

“You want a name?”

“Good morning, Mr Räikkönen,” Christian said, his back to Sebastian.

Another name was given and Christian handed the phone to Sebastian without even saying a word. He wasn’t sure what the boss wanted with the names. It was probably nothing. A display of power. It was pathetic in Christian’s opinion. Things had changed a lot at the NSO recently. He hadn’t become involved in the organisation for this. It was hard to remember they had been the good guys. Once.

“Kimi?” Sebastian asked.

“Seb,” Kimi said. He sighed. He sounded annoyed. Sebastian curled up a little. This was what he was again: a big inconvenience. Maybe Christian was right. Maybe Kimi was letting them keep him here so they didn’t go after his wife. “Are you ok?”

He didn’t sound upset. He just sounded… normal. As if nothing was wrong. As if this was just another late night phone call whilst he was away _working_ and Sebastian was home alone.

“I’m fine,” Sebastian said, quietly.

“I’m coming to get you. Don’t worry.”

“When?” Sebastian asked.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Kimi?”

“I’m coming, Seb, don’t worry,” Kimi said, quietly.

“When?”

“As soon as I can,” Kimi said.

“You love me, don’t you?” Sebastian said again. He didn’t know why. Because if he heard it from Kimi, maybe he could convince himself it was true. Or, maybe if Kimi admitted it, it would hurt less?

“Of course I do,” Kimi said.

Sebastian didn’t reply. He couldn’t reply. He took the phone away from his ear and handed it to Christian. Christian looked down to see the call was still connected, then to Sebastian. Sebastian wasn’t looking at him, his eyes screwed closed.

Pushing the guilt aside, Christian disconnected the call and sat on the mattress edge beside Sebastian.

“What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter?” Sebastian hissed. “I want to go home.”

“Why did you pass me the phone?” Christian asked.

“Because there was nothing else to say,” Sebastian mumbled.

 

Daniel pulled the car up outside the house on Corporation Road, glancing over at Lucy. She wasn’t speaking to him. He’d tried to tell her she didn’t need to do this and that he would come up with another plan, but she’d insisted on it that morning. Daniel didn’t understand her.

They had no way of knowing if Cindy would actually be there, of course, but there was no harm in trying this. Lucy was just an assistant struggling to cope whilst her boss was ill and Sebastian had mysteriously disappeared, and it wouldn’t look that strange her seeking help from somebody who seemed to know what she was doing.

“You don’t have to do this, Lucy,” Daniel said, again.

“You keep saying that, but you don’t mean it,” Lucy said.

“Of course I do,” Daniel said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if I lose you, ok? And if you feel uncomfortable doing something, then I feel uncomfortable making you do it.”

“We’re not arguing about this here,” Lucy said, getting out of the car and slamming the door shut.

Daniel watched Lucy march up to the house. “We weren’t arguing.”

Lucy waited at the bottom of the steps after knocking the door. It was early in the morning and Lucy wasn’t sure if she expected Cindy to be in. She was pretty certain she didn’t _live_ here. Nobody lived here. But, sure enough, Cindy opened the door. At first she looked shocked to see Lucy, then the usual smile was back.

“Hi, honey, what are you doing here?”

“I, um, wanted to say sorry for yesterday,” Lucy said. “Daniel said I fainted. He thinks I’m a little stressed out at work. You see, Mr Hamilton is still ill and I’ve no idea where Mr Vettel is. I’m kind of on my own. In charge, I suppose.”

“They’ve left you on your own?” Cindy asked. She sounded sympathetic but Lucy didn’t trust her one bit anymore.

“Yeah,” Lucy said. “I know this is going to sound pretty crazy, but I don’t suppose you could… help? I mean, if your boss is an investor, he wouldn’t want the business going down the drain, would he? And that’s pretty much where I’m taking it.”

Cindy bit her lip and shifted so that she was leaning on the door frame.

“I’m sorry,” Lucy mumbled, stepping back. “You’ve got stuff to do. I know. I never should have bothered you.”

“Wait,” Cindy said, grabbing Lucy’s hand as she began to ascend the stairs again. “Let me just phone Christian, then I’ll come with you.”

 


	25. The talk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daniel knows Lucy is good at her job, even if she doesn't see it. Felipe finally follows Rob's advice and talks to Jenson.

“Where’s Sebastian, then?” Cindy asked whilst Lucy rushed to make tea for her guest once they reached Hamilton offices. She looked over the clutter on Lewis’s desk, the monitor still sleeping. The assistant’s desk nearby was a lot neater.

“We don’t know,” Lucy said, handing Cindy the tea. “He didn’t come into work a couple of days ago and nobody’s seen him since.” She shrugged and fell into Lewis’s chair, waking the monitor up.

Daniel watched from across the office, at Lucy’s desk, as his friend pointed out the issues the company had to the woman who had drugged her yesterday. Cindy showed no remorse for what she’d done. It was clear it wasn’t her attitude that was keeping her from joining the NSO. He knew he was supposed to be undercover, but he couldn’t help the glare he fixed on Cindy when she wasn’t looking.

“Well, I have phoned Christian, but he’s a little busy at the moment,” Cindy said, sat on Lewis’ desk and looking at the schedule Lucy had pulled onto the computer. “A new project or something. But if he can, he’ll come.”

“He’ll know what to do about all this?” Lucy asked, circling with the mouse all the missed meetings and angry emails they’d received from members of staff waiting for approval from Lewis or Sebastian.

“Probably,” Cindy said. “Have you been to check on Lewis?”

“Not today, no,” Lucy said. “I’m not sure if it’s contagious or not and it looks bad, so I’d rather not risk it.”

“Maybe I should go and check on him,” Cindy said, thoughtfully, watching Lucy flick through a few spreadsheets.

“Are you and Mr Hamilton close?” Lucy asked.

“We were at one point,” Cindy said. “Now it’s strictly business.”

Lucy was a lot better at this kind of thing than she thought, Daniel thought, watching from across the room whilst Lucy and Cindy chatted. He tapped idly at the computer, pretending to work so he had an excuse to hang around the office, not that Cindy had really asked, accepting that Lucy’s boyfriend wanted to hang around whilst the boss was away.

Cindy’s phone started ringing, disturbing a funny story that Daniel didn’t understand.

“It’s Christian,” she said, hoping away from the desk. “I should go and get this.”

“Sure,” Lucy said, smiling as Cindy left the office.

“Look at you two,” Daniel called across the room. “Think you’ve got a new friend.”

“How would you rather I was?” Lucy snapped. Clearly she was still annoyed at him. And he still had no idea why.

“You’re good at this, Lucy,” he said. “I mean _really_ good.”

Lucy frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

What had he said this time?

“That you’re a good agent,” he said, slowly. “You should have more confidence in yourself. Because you’re good. Really good.”

“When I’m not falling for traps and getting drugged, you mean?”

Daniel sighed. Lucy rolled her eyes and turned back to the screen, not watching as Daniel crossed the office. She only looked up when she went to grasp her tea and it wasn’t there. She looked up to find Daniel holding it, grinning.

“I’m not going to say you can’t get better,” Daniel said. “I’m just saying you’re not as bad as you think you are.”

Cindy burst back into the office. “Christian’s here. I’ll go and bring him up.”

She disappeared again and Daniel’ grin grew.

“We’re a good team. Look.”

 

“Where is Kimi?” Felipe asked, making Jenson jump. He hadn’t heard the driver come in.

“Upstairs,” Jenson said. Felipe made to go upstairs. “Wait. Felipe, he’s not in the mood for a chat.”

“Don’t care. Need to talk.”

Jenson practically leapt across the desk to grab Felipe’s shoulder and stop him going upstairs. “Not _now_. Whatever it is, we have bigger problems right now.”

“You know what it’s about,” Felipe snapped.

Of course he did. Jenson let his hand drop from Felipe’s shoulder.

“Just listen, ok?” he said, half expecting Felipe to turn and leave. When he didn’t, Jenson realised he was going to have to say something. “Kimi doesn’t answer questions at the best of times. Do you think he’s going to answer today?”

It was true and they both knew it. Once he knew Felipe wasn’t going to race upstairs, Jenson sat back down at the desk and waved for Felipe to sit in one of the chairs on the opposite wall. He didn’t sit, waiting for an explanation.

Jenson sighed. “Ask me the questions.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” Jenson asked.

“Why?” Felipe cried. “Why kill him? Why try to kill me? Why not let me know? _Why_ , Jenson?”

He fell into the seats Jenson had gestured to, his eyes beginning to sting a little. Maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t said all this to Kimi.

Jenson sighed. This was exactly why they hadn’t told him.

“Felipe,” he said, quietly. “We knew you cared about him. We knew it would put you in an awkward position. That’s why we didn’t tell you.”

“Oh, so glad you got that cleared up,” Felipe said, bitterly.

“I found out Michael was a spy about a month before the crash,” Jenson said. “I don’t know how it happened, but it looks like I missed some stuff in the original background check. We realised he had access to a lot of things it was dangerous for him to have had access to. And that he probably wasn’t just here because he couldn’t be bothered to do his job. What he wanted with Kimi, we will never know, but it probably wasn’t good. He was a dangerous man, and we didn’t want to risk doing this like a normal job. We knew Michael took the train home every weekend. It made sense.”

It made sense.

“Tried speaking to him?” Felipe asked. “Because that would make sense to me.”

“He was a spy, Felipe.”

“You find out Jessica is a spy tomorrow, you kill her?”

“Felipe… that’s not the same thing…”

“Wouldn’t, would you?” Felipe said.

“Do you think it was easy?” Jenson asked. “We all liked Michael. We all cared about you.”

Felipe snorted. “Nearly killed me.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing,” Jenson snapped. “All I do, I do to keep this place safe. To keep us all safe. And if risking one person keeps the rest of us safe, I’d do it, ok? No, I didn’t enjoy it. Yes, I hate myself for doing it.”

“Well, does not look not like you do a very good job, does it?” Felipe snapped, marching up the stairs.

Jenson groaned. That could have gone better.

 


	26. The Investor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christian arrives to help Lucy at Hamilton offices. Fernando feels guilty for his friend's loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's another chapter, because I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to update tomorrow. It's move in day at uni. Hopefully there'll be something here then. If not, Sunday for sure.

If there was one person he could rely on, Christian thought, it was Cindy, but it looked like he didn’t even have her any more. _Helping_ people didn’t sound like her. She was probably guilty about something, though Christian couldn’t care less what, and now she wanted him to help Lewis whilst he was ill. She thought he didn’t know what was had happened between her and Lewis, but that would require him to be blind or stupid or both. Going to see what was going on with his little business would at least make her stop moaning, and might get him the large chunk of money that was missing from his bank account, though, so he’d agreed to go to Hamilton offices for a couple of hours.

“Lucy, this is Christian Horner,” Cindy said, introducing him to the young girl behind the desk. He’d known Lewis liked to hire them young when he saw Sebastian, but this kid was barely out of school and it made him feel old. “Christian, this is Lucy…”

“Windford,” Lucy answered, standing to shake Christian’s hand. “Would you like a drink?”

Christian shook his head and nodded towards Daniel.

“This is… Lucy?”

“Daniel Ricciardo,” Daniel jumped in, shaking Christian’s hand, too. “I’m Lucy’s boyfriend.”

“Ricciardo?” Christian asked, peering at Daniel. He recognised the name and, now that he looked closely, he recognised the face too, but he couldn’t remember where from.

“Yeah,” Daniel said, uncertainly. “I’m not actually anything to do with this place.”

“Here,” Cindy said, drawing Christian’s attention away from Daniel. “Is it ok if I leave you two to it? I want to go and check on Lewis.”

“Is he really that ill, Cindy?” Christian laughed.

“Have you got a key?” Lucy asked.

“No,” Cindy said. She’d thrown it back at him the last time they’d agreed they needed their own space and she’d only seen him at her parent’s café since. “Do you have one?”

Lucy shook her head. “Sorry. But he’ll probably be in. I don’t think he had any plans of leaving his bed today.”

“I’ll have to knock and see if he answers,” Cindy said, smiling down at Lucy before leaving.

Christian made a small apology to the girl before following Cindy out, grabbing her before she could make her way downstairs.

“I’ve got better things to be doing than this, Cindy,” Christian said. “I thought I told you I’m busy.”

“You came didn’t you?” Cindy said, pulling out of Christian’s grip and strutting down the stairs.

 

Kimi had heard the argument downstairs and had fully expected to have the little Brazilian marching into his office next, but the door at the other end of the corridor slammed shut and then there was silence in the building. He knew he was going to have to explain sooner or later, but Jenson was right. They had bigger things to deal with. Michael was dead, and he was still going to be dead in a week’s time. Sebastian was, as far as he knew, alive, but he wasn’t sure how long that was going to last.

Fernando was on Mark’s lap, face buried in Mark’s chest whilst he cried. The door next door slamming shut made him shudder. He could feel Mark pressing a kiss into his hair, but it wasn’t working. Everything was falling apart.

“Should- should go and explain to him,” Fernando mumbled, pushing himself away from Mark.

Mark wiped the tears that were running down Fernando’s face, his other hand still wrapped around his waist, not letting him go. “You don’t even know if he knows we know.”

Normally, Fernando would laugh at that, but not today.

“If he doesn’t, I’ll tell him,” he said. “Is going to need a friend. He’d be there if I lost you.”

“And you were there when he lost Michael,” Mark reminded him.

“And now he’s lost us,” Fernando pointed out. “I have to go and explain, Mark.”

Mark sighed. There was no way he was going to get Fernando to change his mind, so he slid his arm away from his waist and followed him into the break room.

“Felipe?”

Felipe looked up from where he had been sat at the small table, his head in his hands. His eyes were dark and Mark knew he knew they knew. He made no attempts to hide the tears that ran down his face, glaring at Fernando and Mark, then turning back to the wall. He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and trying not to shout again. Fernando crept closer, leaving Mark by the door, and sat in the chair beside his friend. When he tried to put a hand on Felipe’s shoulder, he shrugged him away. The rejection made Mark winced, but he didn’t move from the doorway.

They sat in silence for a moment, Fernando trying to think of the right thing to say. Sorry wasn’t right. Sorry didn’t mean anything anymore.

“Is a terrible thing that we have done,” he said, eventually, looking to Felipe for a reaction, but there was none. “Wanted to tell you so much sooner.”

“Then why didn’t you?” Felipe whispered. He wouldn’t look at Fernando. Couldn’t.

“Because…” Fernando looked up to Mark for help. He could barely remember those few months after the accident himself. He’d been in a state, barely able to leave the house unless it was to go to the hospital, and when he was there Mark wouldn’t leave him alone in case he told Felipe the truth. And then they’d had Felipinho with them constantly asking questions and that teacher at the school trying to explain to him about heaven and just giving him even more questions. Fernando couldn’t quite recall at what point he’d agreed to keep Kimi and Jenson’s secret – maybe it was when he’d first found out the truth behind Eggplant Press – but he knew he’d hated every moment.

“Is nothing you can say, Fernando,” Felipe said.

“I know,” Fernando said, still hoping Mark could give some help, but Mark was still stood by the door, his arms folded across his chest. “Cannot explain why I didn’t tell you. But I was there for you. Don’t you remember?”

“ _There for me_ ,” Felipe cried. His outburst was cut short by the break room door opening again.

“I need to go,” Kimi said, ignoring the filthy looks he was getting from both Felipe and Fernando. “Felipe?”

“Am not driving you anywhere,” Felipe spat, his arms crossed.

“Now is not the time,” Kimi said. “Lucy found the man who has Sebastian.”

“Has Sebastian?” Fernando asked, confused.

“I’ll drive you,” Mark cut in, quickly, almost pulling Kimi out of the break room and closing the door behind them. “Let Fernando explain things to Felipe. I’ll drive you.”

“He doesn’t know Sebastian’s missing, does he?” Kimi asked.

Mark took a deep breath and shook his head.

“Good.”


	27. The Long Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback! Fernando and Mark on the night Michael died and the morning after

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> University move in was a success! Here's another chapter to celebrate. Also, debating adding one more chapter on the end of this work.

Fernando looked down at Felipinho, unable to believe how peaceful he was. Once he’d finally come down from the sugar high Mark had set him on, he’d been out like a light, not a worry in the world. Fernando couldn’t remember ever being that peaceful. He watched the toddler sleep in the comparatively enormous double bed in the spare bedroom.

Mark’s hands slid around his waist and Fernando felt his chin on his shoulder. “See, I told you he’d go to sleep.”

“Will have nightmares with all that sugar in his blood,” Fernando said, turning to face Mark.

Mark smiled town at him. “I doubt it,” he said, pulling Fernando with him out of the bedroom and shutting the door quietly behind him.

There was a film on Fernando had been talking about for a couple of weeks, so they sat and watched that for a little while, Fernando lying with his head on Mark’s lap whilst the taller man drew random patterns onto the back of Fernando’s hand with his thumb. Fernando could feel how tense he was, how tense he had been for weeks now, but the last time he’d mentioned it, they’d argued all night, and they still hadn’t gotten anywhere. Something was wrong with Mark and, though Fernando trusted him more than he even trusted himself, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was his fault.

Neither of them really watched the film.

At half nine, the house phone rang and Mark jumped up to answer it, almost pushing Fernando to the floor in his rush to get to it before his boyfriend did.

“Hello?”

Fernando frowned and muted the television.

“Who is it?” he asked when Mark didn’t say anything, but Mark turned around.

“He- are you sure?”

Fernando sat on the sofa with his arms crossed, trying to focus on the silent film, but he had no idea what was going on anymore. What could be so important that somebody needed to phone them at this time of night anyway? Mark didn’t say much, just making agreeing hums and ‘yep’ every few minutes. Whoever was on the phone liked to talk. After about five minutes, Mark took the phone into his office and closed the door behind him. Fernando rolled his eyes and turned off the film. Maybe he would just go to bed. He doubted Mark would even notice.

Checking one more time on Felipinho – he’d made sure the child knew where to find him if he woke up in the night – Fernando went to bed. He’d been lying there, his eyes closed but his mind still wide awake, for almost half an hour by the time Mark came in. He heard his boyfriend sigh, but refused to open his eyes and, a few minutes later, felt somebody get into the bed beside him.

“Who was that?” he asked.

“Nobody,” Mark lied, pulling himself closer to Fernando and resting his cheek on his back. Fernando was about to pull away when he realised the cheek was wet. He sat up, flicking on the bed side lamp beside him. Mark was crying, his eyes and nose red from rubbing them.

“What has happened?”

“There’s been an accident,” Mark croaked.

Fernando’s first thought was Mark’s parents, but they wouldn’t phone the house phone, and Mark wouldn’t have been so secretive about that.

“What has happened?”

“The train derailed,” Mark said. “Michael is dead. Felipe looks like he’s going to die too.”

Fernando stared at him. “Dead?”

That couldn’t be right. He’d spoken to Felipe. Only a few hours ago, he’d spoken to him.

Mark nodded. He watched as the understanding dragged the annoyance and confusion from Fernando’s face and wanted desperately to hug him and tell him it was going to be ok, but how could he do that, knowing what he knew. Knowing what Jenson had told him they were going to do.

“How?”

“Kimi said-“

“ _Kimi_ phoned?” Fernando asked. Now he knew this was a joke. Kimi never phoned anybody, even if it was important. He always got Jenson to do it, and only if it was absolutely necessary. “Why did Kimi know?”

“I don’t know,” Mark lied.

“This isn’t happening,” Fernando said in disbelief. “Is just a joke.”

“I’m sorry, Fernando.” Mark whispered.

It was true.

“You weren’t going to tell me?” Fernando said.

“I didn’t want to worry you until morning.”

“He could be dead by the morning!” Fernando cried, tears now rolling down his own face.

Mark was dumbstruck. They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the rest of the house, but Felipinho hadn’t woken.

“There’s nothing we can do now anyway,” Mark whispered. “Kimi said they’re operating on him. He smashed his head open. They don’t think he’s going to-“

“Don’t,” Fernando whispered. “Mark, please.”

Mark finally hugged him, Fernando clinging to his shoulders and pressing his face into his chest. It was going to be a long night.

 

“What do we tell him?” Fernando asked, watching Felipinho eat a bowl of cereal whilst he watched cartoons.

“I don’t- I don’t know,” Mark said. There was no new news from the hospital and, whilst he was insisting to Fernando that no news was good news, he couldn’t stop himself worrying. If Felipe died, he was never going to be able to live with himself. He could have stopped Felipe getting on the train. They could have insisted they couldn’t have Felipinho that weekend and they wouldn’t have been able to go. And if Felipe didn’t die, then he was going to have to explain to him that the man he loved was a spy, spying on _them_. “We don’t need to tell him anything.”

“Of course we do,” Fernando snapped.

“Not yet,” Mark finished, taking the coffee out of Fernando’s hands so he could hold them. “We might as well wait until we know for certain what’s going on, ok? Kimi’s going to phone when he knows something.”

“Why did Kimi know before us?” Fernando asked.

Mark shook his head and kissed Fernando’s forehead. He was going to have to tell him what had really happened, he knew it, but he was putting it off for as long as possible.

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s nothing, just all this.”

“You know something,” Fernando said, pulling his hands away. “Something else is wrong and you know something.”

Mark sighed. Felipinho was firmly planted in front of the television and he didn’t look like he was going to be moving from there any time soon.

“Uncle Fernando and I are going in the office, alright mate?” he called, taking Fernando’s hand again.

“Yeah,” Felipinho called, not taking his eyes off of the television.

Fernando pulled Mark into the office, shutting the door behind him. Mark sighed. “I think you’ll need to sit down.”


	28. The Stroke of Luck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Find Christian - find Sebastian. This plan is turning out better than expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timings of updates may seem quite erratic. There isn't as much editing time as before (which could only be expected), but I think I can stick to one a day.

“It looks like you’ve got pretty much everything sorted out,” Christian said, still trying to remember where he recognised Daniel from. “I’ll let Lewis off on the money this week, I wouldn’t want to cause you too much trouble, as it’s the first time in the office by yourself.”

He pulled away from the computer and gave Lucy what he would class as a polite smile. He needed to get back to Sebastian. He’d already been away for too long and if his boss found out he was going to be in for another earful. He wasn't allowed a life anymore, it seemed.

“Thank you Mr Horner,” Lucy said, following him out of the office. “I’ll let Mr Hamilton know as soon as he’s back in the office.”

She led Christian out of the building, chatting about getting into business as they went. She didn’t seem as enthusiastic to Christian as Lewis always made Sebastian out to be. Sebastian being away from the business was really going to hurt it.

Not that the man in charge cared much about that.

“Cindy text earlier,” Christian said, once they were outside. “Lewis didn’t answer the door.”

“He was probably sleeping,” Lucy said, a worried frown on her face. “The doctors said he needed to sleep. I don’t know. The sooner he’s better, the sooner he’s here, I suppose.”

“Haven’t you gone looking for Sebastian?” Christian asked.

Lucy shook her head. “Mr Hamilton went to his flat to look for him the first day he didn’t show up, but he wasn’t there. I don’t know. I think maybe we should phone the police, but Mr Hamilton says he’ll show up when he shows up.”

“You should probably listen to him,” Christian said. “He’s probably right.”

“Yeah,” Lucy agreed, leading Christian to his car that was parked a little way into the car park. “Thanks for this today, Mr Horner. Hopefully we’ll see each other again on less boring terms.”

“Yes,” Christian said. “Until next time.”

Lucy stepped away from the car and watched as Christian left. From across the car park, a black Jeep followed the car.

 

Kimi didn’t recognise the man that Lucy led out of the building, but that was the one Daniel had said was Christian and he was going to assume the kid was doing something right. He knew Daniel didn’t like him being involved, but he was in the back seat of the car, Mark driving. They followed Christian’s car at a distance which Kimi hoped was safe. Daniel had said he seemed pretty distracted. Maybe they had a better chance of keeping safe than they could hope for.

Kimi couldn’t really believe he had been this lucky. Maybe Lucy being such an idiot and shooting Lewis had been the best thing that could have happened. And if Christian led them to Sebastian…

Christian pulled into the car park of an office block near the city centre, an _offices to let_ sign hanging off of the top of the block, as it had been for years. The car park was empty and bushes were creeping over the fence to take over. This place had been abandoned for years.

Mark parked across the street outside a fast food restaurant.

“What do you want me to do now?” he asked. Kimi was watching Christian climb out of the car across the road. He didn’t go into the building through the main entrance, but a side entrance Kimi had to peer out of the window to see. It didn’t look, from across the road at least, as if there were any special locks on the door, but they were too far away to see. “Do you think he’s in there?”

“Maybe,” Kimi mumbled, not looking away from the window.

“Do you want some food?” Mark asked, nodding towards the restaurant.

They sat inside with a better view of the offices across the street. Mark ordered and they ate slowly, both of them watching the abandoned block. Mark was texting Fernando, making sure he wasn’t panicking, but Kimi’s eyes were glued to the door Christian had disappeared behind. When the food was finished and they had stayed for an unreasonable amount of time after, Mark ordered more food. This time neither of them touched it.

Kimi didn’t say a word the entire time and Mark knew better than to try to start a conversation. He had his own thoughts to get stuck into. It had taken him everything to convince Fernando to not tell Felipe after the train incident, and if their friendship fell now, Mark knew it was his fault, and Fernando would know that too. He couldn’t see Felipe holding a grudge, but this was worse than some stupid fight they had when they were kids.

It was almost two hours before Christian remerged from the office, but he didn’t head across to his car, instead crossing the road and heading straight for the restaurant.

“Kimi?”

Kimi just nodded, turning to the now cold food in front of him. Mark did the same, wishing for a moment he was back in the office instead of sitting her with a serial killer watching a kidnapper.

 

Sebastian said he wanted proper food and Christian couldn’t blame him. Though he disagreed that burgers and chips were proper food, it was the nearest thing he could get and he didn’t want to leave him alone again. He was quiet now. He hadn’t moved from the mattress all day and Christian was starting to get worried. The boss kept saying to forget about it, that it served Kimi right if the kid went mad. He’d never admit this aloud, but Christian was pretty sure it was his boss who had gone crazy. At some point the NSO had been concerned with protecting people. He didn’t even know what they were concerned with anymore.

It was between the lunch and the dinner time rush when Christian made his way over, so there wasn’t much of a queue to wait in, or any screaming children to shout over. It didn’t seem right and it made Christian shiver.

 

Kimi listened closely as Christian ordered for two, eating the cold food without paying any attention to it. Mark struggled to keep his eyes off of the man at the counter and concentrated on his phone until he was absolutely certain Christian was gone.

“That’s him,” Kimi said in a low voice once Christian was safely across the road. “And that’s where he has Sebastian.”

 


	29. The Awkward Apology

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rob knows he's screwed up, but he's still a teacher. Sometimes awkward things happen. Sometimes unexpected things happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't going to post again today, but then I remembered it was this chapter, and I like this chapter (though I think it maybe made me cry. How do you write this?)

They let the children out one at a time to make sure they didn’t wonder off with a stranger. Rob spotted Felipe hanging at the back of the playground, away from the groups of gossiping mothers, and let Felipinho out. He was more surprised to spot him again as he let the last child out. The playground was slowly emptying. Some people took longer to leave than others, chatting away whilst their children tugged on their hands, But Felipe was alone.

Rob waved as the last girl skipped to her guardian then shut the classroom door.

He was such an idiot. They were getting on fine. There was no need for him to do something like that – not yet anyway - and it was clear Felipe was going through a shit time and he needed somebody there for him. Who could he go to _now_ because there was no way he was ever coming to talk to Rob about anything ever again?

Somebody knocked on the door and Rob jumped away from it. The knocking persisted and, assuming it was the child who had left their lunch box on the trolley, Rob opened the door,

Felipinho Massa beamed up at him.

His father stood behind him, a smaller smile on his face.

“Was wondering if he could maybe borrow a book, to help with his reading?” Felipe said, quietly.

“He… um… he has a reading book.”

“Have read this lots over the weekend,” Felipe said. “Doesn’t get changed until Wednesday and he refuses to read it again.”

“Yeah, sure,” Rob smiled down at Felipinho. “You know where the books are.”

Felipinho skipped off towards the book corner.

Rob’s heart was thumping in his chest. He still hadn’t figured out how to say sorry for what he’d done – mostly because he hadn’t thought he’d need to. He hadn’t thought Felipe would ever speak to him again. But here they were, stood awkwardly in the doorway and somebody needed to say something soon. Felipe kicked at the floor. Clearly it wasn’t going to be him to start the conversation.

“I’m sorry about yesterday,” Rob said, quietly. He was also looking at the floor, watching as Felipe’s foot stilled. “I mean, I know I shouldn’t have done that. You’re going through a shit time and I must have made you feel really awkward but… I don’t know. I really… I don’t know.”

Well that was a brilliant apology. All those years of studying and everything else and the most decent apology he could come up with was _sorry, I don’t know_.

“Did you mean it?” Felipe asked.

Did he mean it?

When Rob looked up, Felipe was watching him. He couldn’t help but stare at Felipe for a while, trying to figure out what the right thing to say was. Yes, was the answer. Yes he had, and he’d wanted to for what felt like years.

“Yes,” Rob said.

Felipe nodded. Rob thought he looked like he was going to be sick, but he just returned his gaze to the floor, his mouth glued shut.

Felipinho was still rummaging about in the book corner, taking far longer than he should have been to get a book. Felipe had asked him to stay out of the way. Of course he had.

“I am sorry,” Rob said, quietly, also looking at the floor again. “I like you. A lot, I mean. It sounds stupid, I know. Probably because it is stupid, but I don’t know what else to say.”

“Is ok,” Felipe said. “Think maybe you are supposed to ask me on a date first, you know?”

“Hmmm, that would be what normal people do, wouldn’t it?” Rob agreed, not able to take his eyes off of the floor. If he had, he would have seen Felipe smiling up at him. The smile itself was small, but it reached his eyes. He hadn’t smiled properly since he found out about Michael.

“Want to go for coffee sometime?” Felipe asked.

Rob looked up, the surprise on his face making Felipe laugh a little.

“Maybe without the children this time?”

“The woman next door looks after Ivy for me after school some days,” Rob said, not quite able to believe what he was doing. “I think she’d probably look after Felipinho too if I asked her nicely.”

“Tomorrow?” Felipe asked.

“Sure,” Rob said. He shut his mouth before he could say anything else.

Felipe’s grin spread and Rob couldn’t help but grin back at him.

“Come on, Felipinho, have you got a book?”

“Yeah,” Felipinho called, skipping back over. “Bye, Mr Smedley.”

“Bye,” Rob said, laughing to himself a little as he let them both out.

 

“I don’t know this one.”

“Yeah, you do. You had it on the last page.”

“I don’t know it.”

“Sound it out.”

“Fry-“

“No. Remember?”

“Fre- friends.”

“That’s it.”

“He. Showed. The. Ball. To. His. New. Friends. Everybody. Cheered. The end.”

“The end,” Felipe said, taking the book from Felipinho and putting it on the floor.

“Daddy?”

“Yeah?” Felipe said, writing in the reading diary that had been hiding in his son’s school bag.

“Do you think Michael would be sad because Mr Smedley loves you?”

Felipe froze, then looked down at his child. Felipinho was playing with his blankets and didn’t notice.

“What makes you think Mr Smedley loves me?” Felipe tried to laugh, but it didn’t come out properly and he doubted he’d fooled him.

“Because he does,” Felipinho said. “Will Michael be sad?”

“I don’t- I don’t think Mr Smedley loves me, Felipinho, we’re just friends,” Felipe said, slowly.

“I don’t think he would be.”

“What?”

“I don’t think Michael would be sad,” Felipinho explained. “Because he was always happy when you were happy, and when people love you, you’re happy.”

Felipe smiled down at Felipinho whilst the five year old fiddled with the blankets. They should spend more time reading.

 


	30. The Morning of the Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With quite a lot of luck, everything looks as if it's finally letting them sort things out. Things can't possibly run that smoothly though...

Daniel was back at his own flat, glad to be sleeping in his own bed after the few days on Lucy’s sofa.

This was almost over. Tomorrow, Kimi was going in for Sebastian. Daniel had tried to insist on getting one of their teams of agents in. They would have better been able to make sure nobody got hurt and Christian would be a valuable asset to them. With Valtteri in the NSO, and Christian in their custody, they might even have been able to take the organisation down a few pegs. And with the information Kimi had promised to give him... This was very much looking like the most successful debut mission ever, he thought.

But then Kimi had wanted to go in himself, and arguing with him had proven useless. It worried Daniel. He’d tried to explain to him. Kimi was a logical man and Daniel was just beginning to feel like they were getting along, once Daniel figured out how the older man worked, but this was completely out of character. Where was the calm, serious, logical man now?

Love. That was the only thing Daniel could think of. It made people do stupid things.

He lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for his mind to quieten so he could sleep, but it wouldn’t. There was too much going on and he couldn’t stop himself grinning. As of tomorrow, if all things went to plan, he could very well be one of the greatest strategists they’d seen. Things had turned so quickly. They should have told Kimi Räikkönen what was going on weeks ago, although he probably wouldn’t even have been working with him if Sebastian hadn’t gone missing. He knew Kimi thought he could do all this by himself, but would they have found out about Cindy if it wasn’t for Lucy? Would they have found Christian, and that abandoned office block? He couldn’t take all the credit, of course. Putting Lucy at Lewis Hamilton was a stroke of luck, and they wouldn’t have been able to do half the stuff they had done without a lot of that, but wasn’t luck what they ran off of.

It had turned out to be a pretty good-

Something in the other room smashed.

He lay in silence for a moment, the remainder of his grin quickly falling from his face. There was somebody in the other room. He wasn’t sure how long he lay there, but there was only silence. Trying to shake off the fear, Daniel took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He’d probable imagined it. He couldn’t let the pressure get to him. Even if he wasn’t physically involved in what was going on tomorrow he needed to-

There was another smash.

There was definitely somebody else in his flat.

He swung himself out of bed, looking around the small bedroom for something to defend himself with, but there wasn’t anything more than clothes and bed sheets. He pulled his dressing gown on – it was freezing once he’d left the comfort of the covers – and edged towards the door, trying to remind himself that he was actually trained in self-defence and the chances were that these guys were just burglars.

As soon as he opened the bedroom door, he realised that this was not going to be the case.

 

Lucy was at Eggplant Press bright and early, before any of the people who actually worked there had shown up. Susie had helped to convince Lewis to not say anything. This consisted of taking him on a long ride in the back of a van in the middle of the night and Lucy got the impression he hadn’t liked it. She wasn’t sure where he was now. Maybe once they got Sebastian back, they could do a press release: _entrepreneur Lewis Hamilton has decided to take an early retirement and has left the business to his hard working second in command Sebastian Vettel._ Lord knew he deserved it, even if he was a bit of a dick.

It was freezing and Lucy was hoping from foot to foot to try to keep warm. It was almost nine o’clock. They weren’t going to get Sebastian until later, she knew, but she’d thought they would have been here by now.

As her watch ticked closer to nine o’clock, the Jeep rushed in to the car park and Kimi burst out. He rushed past Lucy, ignoring her, and pulled out his keys. His hands were shaking so hard he could barely get the key in the door and once, he had it open and was inside, he slammed the door shut in Lucy’s face.

The phone was ringing when he got inside and he grabbed it up from the desk without pausing to breath.

“Hello?”

“A little late, Mr Räikkönen,” Christian said.

“It’s nine o’clock. Do you want the name or not?”

He had no idea what they were doing with the names and he didn’t care anymore. It wasn’t long now…

“Kimi?” Sebastian said, his voice shaking when he was given the phone.

“Seb, is he listening?” Kimi asked, quickly, falling back into the chair behind the desk.

“What?”

“Can he hear what I’m saying to you?”

There was a pause for a moment and Kimi held his breath, waiting for Sebastian to reply.

“No.”

“I’m coming for you Seb. This afternoon.”

“You’re… but Kimi?” Sebastian’s voice broke on the name and Kimi felt his heart jerk in his throat.

“Don’t worry,” Kimi said. “We know where we are and we’re coming for you.”

There was silence for too long and, at first, Kimi thought the call had been disconnected, then he heard a shaky breath on the other end of the line.

“What will your wife say?” Sebastian asked, his voice suddenly much stronger than before.

“What?”

“Why don’t you just leave me here, Kimi? Wouldn’t that be easier for you?”

Kimi stared at the phone, waiting for that last comment to make sense, but the device gave him no answers. “Sebastian, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t?”

“I love you,” Kimi said. “And I have dropped everything to get you back. So I can show you how much I love you.”

“And your wife?”

“Whatever he’s been telling you, he’s lying,” Kimi said. “I don’t have a wife. I have you. That’s it. And I’d never want any more.”

His voice was calm, but his blood was boiling. What else had they been telling him?

“I love you,” Sebastian whispered.

“I love you too.”

 

Half an hour later and everybody had gathered in the small break room. Almost everybody. Daniel wasn’t due for another half an hour, and that was assuming the trains were running on time. Even so, his absence made Lucy nervous. She hadn’t wanted to let him go back to his flat the night before, but he’d insisted, and she was still annoyed at him – a little – so she’d just let him go. But now he wasn’t replying to the texts she’d been sending. At first she’d just wanted to talk about what she was going to do after this. She’d wanted to hear him tell her she was good at this. But there was only silence from the strategist.

Felipe wasn’t there, either. Nobody expected him to be.

Fernando was sure he was never coming back. He wasn’t answering the phone, and Fernando didn’t blame him. He hadn’t yet gone round to see how he was. Something told him he wouldn’t be welcome.

Mark slipped an arm around his boyfriend’s waist but Fernando didn’t react. He’d barely spoken a word to Mark. He’d spent the evening running through the questions Felipe had thrown at him. None of them had any answers. And then there were the arguments he’d had with Mark. Every time he could have turned around and done the _right thing._ It was too late for any of that now, he knew, but… He wanted desperately for someone to do something. The problem at Eggplant Press, something to do with Sebastian he knew, didn’t really matter to him, but they were all stood there, waiting with so much tension it made Fernando want to cry out. Somebody needed to _do_ something.

Mark hadn’t wanted him to come in today. He knew what was going on and, even though it wasn’t happening at the offices, he didn’t want Fernando around them. He knew Fernando hadn’t slept the night before and he was struggling to remember how he’d calmed him down before.

They waited in silence for Kimi, the only one sat down, to speak.

Lucy was checking her phone still, waiting for Daniel. She’d thought he would have at least text her when he got on the train, but there was nothing.

“Right,” Kimi said. “Here’s the plan.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are about to happen very fast. It would be interesting to hear what you're thinking along the lines of the leader of the NSO. I think there's one more clue in the next chapter, but things are coming together now. Not long left. :)


	31. The Explanation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to post this chapter. I'm such an idiot. I don't know how it got missed out.

“You lied to me,” Sebastian spat, looking up from his mattress. He couldn’t believe he’d believed him. He should have trusted Kimi. Should have known Kimi would never do something like that to him.

“There must have been something in it,” Christian said. “Or else you wouldn’t have believed me.”

Sebastian stared at him. “You’re evil.”

“I’m doing my job,” Christian snapped, rubbing his jaw. “I am just doing my job.”

He sighed and sank onto the mattress to sit beside Sebastian, but Sebastian jumped up. He didn’t want to be anywhere near him. Christian closed his eyes and tried to calm himself down.

“Do you think I want to be doing this, Sebastian?” he asked, his eyes still closed. “I started doing this job to do good.”

“And then you just started kidnapping and blackmailing?” Sebastian asked. “One thing led to another.”

“Kimi Räikkönen is a bad man,” Christian insisted. “And I never _wanted_ to kidnap you. It’s alright for some. Alright for you: Lewis Hamilton would let you do anything and he probably wouldn’t even notice. My boss pays attention to me. I don’t do what he says and my family are dead.”

Sebastian was about to argue when he registered what Christian had said and his retort fell from his mind. He looked down at Christian, at a very scared man.

“Your family?”

Christian looked up to find Sebastian watching him, confused. Christian sighed. “You should sit down. Let me explain.”

Sebastian frowned. He wasn’t sitting next to Christian. Family in trouble or not, he’d still _lied_ to him. He sat on the floor where he stood, all the time never taking his eyes off of Christian, and waited for him to begin to explain.

“The NSO, the organisation I’m in, they used to be the ones doing good,” Christian explained. “That’s why I joined. I wanted to help people. To protect people. Wait! Let me finish. That’s why we started to investigate Kimi Räikkönen in the first place. We sent in a spy. Michael Schumacher.”

Schumacher? Sebastian recognised the name, but Kimi never spoke about his clients or his hits.

“Somehow, they found out he was with us and they killed him,” Christian continued. “Things started to change. I don’t know why. Agents have been killed in the past and it’s never had something like this happen because of it. Sure, we go and investigate the death. Usually there’s somebody who’s punished for it. But we’ve never brought in innocent people. We’ve never hurt anybody _like this_. But the man in charge – my boss – he’s obsessed by this, by Räikkönen. It’s like he’s possessed. We’ve dropped other things – important things – so we can do this. I told him he was being mad, and that I wasn’t going to do this to you, and he took my family.”

Christian still couldn’t believe he had been so stupid. He should have just kept his mouth shut and done the work. Nobody else had questioned it. But nobody else was so close to the boss and still didn’t understand his motives. Everybody else assumed he must have been doing this for rational reasons, but Christian just couldn’t figure out what those were.

“He told me that they’re safe,” Christian said, quietly. “That they don’t even know what’s going on. But, if I don’t keep you here, they’re going to get hurt, Sebastian. And I’m sorry, but I can’t let that happen.”

“What happens when Kimi comes for me?” Sebastian asked.

Christian shook his head. “He won’t come for you, Sebastian,” he said, quietly. “He’s too cautious to do anything like that.”

“He loves me,” Sebastian said, quickly. “I know he does. People do stupid things when they’re in love.”

Christian sighed. There wasn’t going to be any getting through to him. Maybe he was right and Kimi Räikkönen really was coming to find him, but he couldn’t possibly have any idea where they were. That was why it was just them. The boss felt they were pretty secure and was almost certain Räikkönen wouldn’t do anything.

And now that they had Daniel Ricciardo, they could forget about those idiots coming after them as well.

 

Lucy was at the train station, waiting for Daniel. The trains were running late again and, if he didn’t get here soon, Kimi was going to get annoyed. They didn’t _need_ Daniel. He’d done his bit making the plan. But Lucy was starting to get worried. He wasn’t here and he should have been. He wasn’t answering his phone either, and the longer they went without speaking to each other, the more times Lucy would phone and the more times Daniel wouldn’t pick up.

Eventually, the train Daniel was supposed to be on pulled into the station, far later than it was supposed to arrive, and a few people got off. The station was never very busy. Daniel wasn't one of those people.

 

“Daniel is missing, we can’t do this,” Lucy announced on arrival back at Eggplant Press. “Something is wrong and I don’t like it. We’re not doing it.”

Everyone looked up at her as if she was mad. Susie was already halfway through getting into the office security systems so they could monitor the place. Everybody was already getting ready to leave. They were not calling this off.

“Wasn’t he on the train?” Jenson asked.

Lucy rolled her eyes at him. She wasn’t an idiot. Maybe she did stupid things and she panicked some times, but she knew when somebody was missing. She’d known when Sebastian didn’t arrive at work that something had happened to him and she knew that Daniel was missing.

“I’m not doing it,” Lucy said, arms folded.

“We don’t need you to do it,” Kimi said. “Anyone can watch a monitor and make sure there’s nobody coming.”

“Well, you shouldn’t find it hard to replace me then,” Lucy said. “I’m not doing it and that’s that. Daniel is missing and if you guys think this is nothing to do with that, then you’re stupider than I thought.”

Susie frowned. “Maybe Lucy’s right.”

“Maybe I don’t care,” Kimi said. “I am going to get Sebastian back. And, if you want the information I have on the NSO, then you’re going to have to help me.”

 


	32. The Rescue

One thing Mark was thankful for was that they needed somebody to stay at the office and answer the phones. If all this was going to be over soon and they were going to get back to usual, somebody needed to stay behind to make sure things didn’t look too odd. He’d volunteered Fernando.

“I’m not staying here,” Fernando said as the others prepared to leave. “I’m not letting you go after some kidnapper, Mark.”

“I’m going to be staying in the car the entire time,” Mark insisted, easing Fernando into Jenson’ chair. “And Lucy’s going to be here, watching the entire thing, so you’ll be able to see that nothing is going to happen.”

He smiled hopefully at Fernando, but Fernando didn’t return it. He was scared to death. This was even worse than when Michael had died. But this was going to be over so soon and then they could begin to get back to normal. They’d work out how to make things up to Felipe and maybe he never would come back to Eggplant Press, but Fernando needed that friendship. It was what was keeping him sane.

“Do not see why I have to stay here if she is,” Fernando said, glaring at Lucy from across the reception area.

“Because she needs to concentrate on what she’s doing,” Kimi cut in, making them both jump. “Do what you’re told, for once.”

Fernando nodded quickly and slumped back in Jenson’ chair. Mark gave him what he hoped was a settling smile and kissed his forehead. “We’ll be back before you know it. You’ll see.”

It was unsettling how empty the place was. Lucy watched on the screen as the CCTV images were sent over to her. Each image showed an empty corridor or room. There wasn’t a soul there. At first she’d thought they must have gotten the wrong building but she spotted Christian heading down a corridor. It looked like he was the only one there and she didn’t like that. Why wasn’t there more security?

With little difficulty, she tracked his progress through the building. This was the kind of thing she was used to and the kind of thing she was good at. She didn’t care what Daniel said; she could have easily ruined this mission and it was only down to a phenomenal amount of luck that she hadn’t.

And there was Sebastian.

“I got him,” she muttered into the head set, connected to Susie, who had gone with the Eggplant Press team much to Kimi’s annoyance.

“How is he?” Susie asked.

“He looks fine,” she said. It was strange to see the man she had always known as cocky looking so helpless. Physically, he seemed alright, though the image wasn’t that amazing a quality and he wasn’t moving. He was just sat, his knees to his chest, waiting. Physically fine was one thing, though. There was no way of knowing if he was really alright until they got to him.

“What else is there?”

“Nothing,” Lucy said, still flicking through shot after shot of the empty building. “There’s nobody. Just Christian and Sebastian.”

“They clearly don’t think we’re coming then.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little off?”

“Maybe,” Susie agreed.

“Maybe they want us to get Sebastian.”

“Why would they want to do that, Lucy?” Susie said with a small laugh. “I think they don’t know we’re coming. The only reason we knew where to come in the first place was damn good luck.”

“Maybe,” Lucy said.

They pulled into the car park outside of the offices, not caring about being discreet this time. If Lucy was right and there really was nobody there, they didn’t have anything to worry about. Mark was in the driving seat, ready for the get-away, with Susie beside him. Kimi was still uncertain about having Mark drive, but there was no way Felipe was going to agree and Mark was the next best thing. It wasn’t that he was a bad driver, but he had never done this kind of thing before, as far as Kimi was aware, and he was pretty sick of dealing with amateurs.

Kimi got out of the car and Jenson followed. The secretary was only there for if things went wrong, to get Sebastian out if Kimi was too badly hurt to do so. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to leave Kimi, though. If it was a straightforward choice between Kimi and Sebastian, Kimi was the one being rescued. He was hoping it didn’t come to that though.

As they made the walk from the car to the door that Kimi had seen Christian use the day before, the silence that settled between them felt natural. They stopped outside of the door and Jenson took a moment to think about what he was doing: making up for the biggest mistake of his life.

“Are you ready?” Kimi asked, poised, ready to take down the door.

“Ready.”

Felipe couldn’t shake his nervousness. He knew Rob liked him though, just like last time, he couldn’t even begin to imagine why. It was a distraction, though, and the good kind. Eggplant Press was on its head and he knew he really should have been over there, helping. None of this was Sebastian’s fault. But he knew being around Kimi and the others would only result in another outburst. The most help he could be to Sebastian right now would be to stay away. Once they got him out, Felipe was going to advise him to do the same.

Rob was still at the school. They weren’t due to meet for another half an hour when Felipe reached the café, but staying at home all day had just made him angry and sad, and he didn’t want to feel like that. The walk across town had done him good, let him empty his head a little. 

This would be good for him. However this worked out with Rob, it was a fresh start for him. He wasn’t putting up with this anymore. If they thought he couldn’t just walk out of Eggplant Press, they had another thought coming. He wasn’t going to listen to their nonsense excuses anymore. Telling him they did what was best for the company and never minding him. Never minding how he felt. Nope. There was going to be none of that anymore. He was pretty sure he could find a job somewhere where his boss had no intention of killing anyone, least of all his boyfriend. And he knew this was going to annoy Kimi, and get Jenson worked up about security, and upset Fernando and Mark, but he didn’t care. He needed to take control of his own life and that was exactly what he was going to do.

Rob hurried into the café, grinning when he saw him. Felipe easily returned the expression.

Christian was sat in the room with Sebastian again, waiting for his brain to come up with something to say. Sebastian was so sure Räikkönen was coming for him, but he’d been nothing but obedient since the phone calls started and Christian had even begin to believe what his boss had said about the wife in London. It wouldn’t have been the first time he was right.

The girl at Hamilton offices and her boyfriend were both spies. Out of curiosity, Christian had started working on the first name Räikkönen had given him. And who should the client have had a grudge against but Daniel Ricciardo. That was where he’d recognised the name from. The boss had been to visit him. Found the plans and the corrupted NSO software on his computer. They’d been working against them, trying to warn Räikkönen before the NSO had taken Sebastian. Ricciardo hadn’t looked like much of a strategist to Christian, but all the plans were there, including the girl. He wasn’t sure if the boss was even going for her. They had Ricciardo and Bottas. Tumbling the whole organisation shouldn’t be that much work.

“Are you hungry?” Christian asked, uncertainly. Sebastian hadn’t eaten since breakfast before the phone call and it was now nearly four in the afternoon.

“A little,” Sebastian said quietly.

Christian stood and smiled down at Sebastian, but it was lost on him. “I brought some sandwiches and biscuits and things,” he said. “I can go and get them now, if you’d like.”

Sebastian nodded. Christian sighed. This was going to be awkward if he kept up like this for much longer, but he couldn’t really blame the kid. None of this was his fault, he couldn’t help but remind himself.

Christian promised he would be back soon, which Sebastian didn’t acknowledge, then hurried out of the room, just as Kimi and Jenson turned the corner.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will just leave you with this...


	33. The Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felipe's ready for a fresh start, and he hopes Rob wants to be a part of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought shit was going to go down (or hit the fan) in the next chapter too, but then it turned out I had this little one stuck in here. I didn't really think anybody would mind. :)

Rob looked at him in a way that made him squirm, but it wasn’t out of uncomfortableness. He grinned down at his drink, looking up every few seconds to find Rob was still grinning at him and it made him buzz.

Felipinho was right about being happy. Felipe wasn’t sure why he was always surprised by that.

“I really am sorry about the other day,” Rob said again. “I don’t know.”

“Said I should listen to you,” Felipe pointed out. “Should talk.”

“Yes,” Rob said, picking apart the pastry that he had brought. “Probably. I just don’t know what to say.”

Felipe nodded. “Seem to be able to talk to Felipinho well,” he said. “Try talking to me like you talk to him.”

“You want me to talk to you as if you’re a five year old?” Rob laughed.

“If it will help you talk,” Felipe said, still grinning.

There was still nothing, just Rob grinning down at his no torn up pastry with his face turning more and more red, but it still made Felipe grin.

“He talks about you a lot,” Felipe said, hoping to prompt Rob. “Says you love me.”

“Maybe I do,” Rob said, quietly.

Felipe laughed. “Do not even know me.”

“I feel like I do,” Rob said. He looked up at Felipe, but looked away quickly when their eyes met. “Sorry, I sound like a nutter, don’t I?”

“A little, maybe,” Felipe laughed.

“I’m not,” Rob said, finally managing to look up at the man across the table for more than a few seconds. “I think you’re the kind of person I want to know better. Felipinho idolises you and maybe his opinion isn’t the most unbiased thing in the world but I’ve wanted to ask you out since I laid eyes on you anyway. That is really, really weird isn’t it. This isn’t how I talk to Felipinho, by the way. Fuck. I really don’t know what to say.”

Felipe laughed again. “Am glad to hear that. About Felipinho, I mean. About how you talk to him. See, have me doing it now.”

Rob sighed. “I was better when I was kissing you. Sorry about that.”

“Don’t need to keep saying sorry about that,” Felipe said. “Should maybe try talking about yourself. Don’t know anything about you.”

“I know about that,” Rob said. “What do you want to know?”

Felipe cocked his head, his hands under his chin. “Who is this Rob Smedley my son keeps talking about me to?”

Rob laughed and leaned back in his chair. “Rob Smedley is a primary school teacher and father to one. He left his wife – or his wife left him – when she realised they were really interested in the same thing. That was the last serious relationship I ever had. I’ve met guys I liked, some of them liked me back, but things never really worked out, for one reason or another. I’ve spent the last I don’t know how many years of my life trying to set up _Fun for Fathers_ properly and looking after Ivy. That’s pretty much my life at the moment. Work and Ivy.”

“Know how you feel,” Felipe said with a sad smile. “But you love your job? Cannot see why you would do it if you didn’t love it.”

“You don’t love your job,” Rob said.

“Is different,” Felipe said, waving away the comment and neglecting to tell him that he no longer had a job. “I don’t have to spend all day with screaming children.”

“They’re not all screaming,” Rob laughed. “But yeah, I love my job. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it. Sometimes I’m ready to dive into bed and never come out, but there’s always something that keeps me going.”

Felipe was glad to see Rob finally at ease. He wasn’t sure why the teacher was so nervous. It was clear to see why anybody would want to be sat with Rob drinking coffee. He had nothing to prove, no obviously misleading image that he had to try to live up to. Rob was just Rob, and Felipe could see nothing wrong with that.

“And what about you,” Rob asked. “Though I’m sure Felipinho is the most trustworthy source of information in the world, it would be nice to hear what you have to say.”

“About me?”

“Yep,” Rob said, grinning.

“Well, what does Felipinho tell you?” Felipe asked. “I will tell you where he makes the things up.”

“Nope, you’re not getting out of it that easily.”

“Don’t want to disappoint,” Felipe said, quietly, his grin gone now. Felipinho had to have said something to make Rob think he was worth wasting his time on and, if he were honest, he quite liked Rob wasting his time on him.

Rob reached across the table and held his hand with sticky, sugar coated fingers. “I’m sure you won’t.”

Felipe sighed and looked down at the hand holding his.

“Is not really much to tell,” he said. “There’s just me and Felipinho. There has been just me and Felipinho since he was only a few weeks old. I had a boyfriend for a while, but he’s gone now.” Felipe offered a weak smile, trying to think of something else to say, but his mind had suddenly gone blank. “Do not really have hobbies as much, but Felipinho is determined he wants to be a footballer all of a sudden, so I play with him at the weekends until he’s old enough to play at school.” He shrugged. “That’s it. That is me.”

“And work?”

“There is no work anymore,” Felipe said. “Have spoken to my boss, and I’m not going back there. They did something terrible and I’m not going to forgive them for it.”

“You’re just going to quit?” Rob asked. “What happened? What could be that bad?”

“There will be other jobs,” Felipe said, taking his hand away from Rob’s. “Just could not stay at that one. My boss… um… he caused the end of my last relationship.”

Rob frowned. “I thought… I mean, Felipinho said…. Felipinho said he died.”

“Yes,” Felipe said. “Don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Sorry,” Rob said, quickly.

“No, isn’t your fault,” Felipe said, forcing a smile. “All this means is a fresh start for me. It will be nice. Would be nice if, maybe, you could be a part of that.”

Rob grinned. They ordered more pastries and the topic of conversations turned to sports. As they spoke, Felipe watched as Rob steered the conversation, somehow knowing what to talk about and what not to talk about. Without even asking, he knew what topics were safe and what were not, and Felipe knew he could listen to him speak for hours without saying a word. It was clear to see why Felipinho would like him, though Felipe got the feeling he could admire Rob for more reasons than his son could.

Half way through Rob’s argument that there was hope in the English national football team - Felipe having none of it – the teacher’s mobile began to ring. He glanced down at the display and his face fell instantly.

“My dad,” he said, in explanation. “I should get this.”

“Sure,” Felipe said, feeling like he had won his argument against the football team, and watched Rob hurry out of the café and out of sight.

It was a few minutes before he returned, any remainder of a smile gone.

“I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go.”

“What happened?” Felipe asked.

“It’s my mum, she’s been in an accident.”

“Is she ok?”

“She’s in hospital now,” Rob said. “I’m going to have to go and see her.”

“Do you want me to have Ivy?” Felipe asked, following Rob out of the café. “Would be no trouble.”

Rob stopped walking for a moment and looked down at Felipe as if that was the last thing he had expected him to say. “Could you?”

“It would be fine,” Felipe insisted. “Could stay the night if she needed to. Would be no problem.”

“Let me drive you back to mine then,” Rob said. “We’ll pick up her and Felipinho, I’ll get her an overnight bag, and drop you off on the way to the hospital.” Felipe hurried after Rob as he practically ran to his car. He stopped before either of them could get in though and kissed Felipe on the cheek. Nothing like the last time. Brief and almost non-existent. Nice. “Thank you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so you know, this was also a pain to write, and I nearly threw up in editing because how do you actually write this without your entire body tensing up?


	34. The Gunshots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Now* the shit is going to go down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Build up went pretty well. Sorry if this all falls short of your expectations.

The gun shot burst into the silence that had consumed Sebastian since he had been taken and he jumped up, running to the door. Kimi. It had to be. Kimi was coming for him.

“Kimi!” he called, forehead pressed against the door, trying to hear what was going on. There were more gun shots, and Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut, the sound echoing around the inside of his head. The banging stopped as suddenly as it had started and he was left in an almost silence, only broken by the breathy whispered prayer he was reciting. Kimi was alright. Kimi _had_ to be alright.

There was nothing on the other side of the door. No gun shots or footsteps or shouts. Silence.

“Please be alright, please, I can’t… I can’t… Kimi!”

There was the sound of metal against metal on the other side of the door and Sebastian stumbled away, all the way on to the mattress. It was Kimi. It _had_ to be Kimi.

He squeezed his eyes shut again, as if preparing for Christian to walk through the door. He didn’t know what he’d do if it wasn’t Kimi. He didn’t _want_ to know.

The door crashed into the wall behind it and were arms wrapped around him and a body against his before he even opened his eyes. He fell back onto the mattress, letting the smell of Kimi wash over him, his eyes still closed and his heart beating so hard he thought it might knock Kimi off of him.

Kimi beamed down at him, wiping his hair from his face until Sebastian opened his eyes and Kimi finally got to look into the bright blue eyes.

“I told you I’d come for you,” he whispered.

 

He was going to die. Christian looked down at his hand, stained red in his own blood and it wasn’t going to stop. He struggled up so that he was sitting with his back against the wall, tears creeping down his face. He was going to die, and he had no idea what was going to happen to them.

He returned the hand to his stomach, as if that could possibly ease the flow, but it was useless. His other arm was numb at his side and he couldn’t move it.

He needed to tell Sebastian. He’d tell him, show him the photo, make sure his family was safe from the man he no longer had to call his boss…

With his blood stained hand, Christian took the photo he kept with him at all times, the message on the back written for exactly this scenario. He could hear Kimi and Sebastian down the hall. Sebastian was happy. Maybe Kimi was an awful human being, but he was making Sebastian happy…

He must have blacked out for a moment, because when he opened his eyes again, Kimi Räikkönen’s face was inches from his, the icy blue eyes staring into his soul. Sebastian was hovering behind him. Kimi was saying something but Christian couldn’t hear what and his eyes were locked on Sebastian’s. He pushed the photo towards him, hopefully. Maybe giving it to Kimi would be better – the hit man would be better able to protect them – but he trusted Sebastian. Sebastian would do the right thing.

 

Kimi pushed the older man’s shouler back into the wall again, but Christian’s eyes were drooping heavily now.

“Tell me who’s in charge,” Kimi hissed, angrily. He should have known Jenson was going to be trigger happy. He needed to know. “Tell me.”

“Come on,” Jenson was tugging at his shoulder as he spoke, trying to get him to move. Kimi shrugged him away and gave him a glare that made him back away a few steps. “There’ll be people coming soon. The CCTV was designed for someone and it wasn’t Lucy.”

Kimi stood. Jenson was right and Christian only had a few more seconds. There would be no dying words. Just a disgusting man dying in the corridor of an abandoned office block.

 

Lucy smiled sadly as she watched the car pull out of the car park. There had been no need to kill Christian, but that was the world she lived in. And they had won. Sebastian was safely back with them, she could get the invaluable information on the NSO from Kimi, and then she could be back behind a desk somewhere as far away from the action as possible by tomorrow afternoon.

She waited a few minutes for Fernando to finish on the phone before sharing the news that it was over.

“He’s safe?” Fernando asked.

Lucy nodded. “They’re all safe. On their way back now.”

Fernando fell back into his chair, relieved. There was still a lot of cleaning up to do. That wouldn’t be over for another couple of months, if not longer, but they could start to get back to normal. They were safe again. He grinned over at Lucy.

“Shall go and make drinks to celebrate.”

Lucy grinned back and watched Fernando hurry up the stairs. For a second she thought she might miss this place, but she knew that was a lie. She couldn’t wait to leave.

Whilst Fernando was out, the phone rang. She knew she wasn’t supposed to answer it, but what harm could it do. It was probably another nutter phoning up to say they’d seen a UFO.

“Hello?” she said, standing on the other side of the desk.

“I have Ricciardo.”


	35. The Motive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy, Susie, Kimi, and Jenson are trying to figure out who's leading the NSO, and who has Daniel but, as they think aloud, it's Sebastian who puts two and two together...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who haven't already figured out who the leader of the NSO is, I hope this gives you enough clues. When you figure it out, know I had no idea this was what was going on until a couple of chapters ago. :)
> 
> (Again, please ignore minor blunder)

They all stood in silence again. Mark and Fernando had gone home and Kimi had wanted Sebastian to go with them, but Sebastian was having none of it, claiming that he wasn’t going to leave Kimi’s side until this was all over. Jenson sat behind the desk, his head in his hands. This was his fault. They could have found out who was in charge if he hadn’t been so stupid. Nobody had said that yet, but he knew that was what they were all thinking. Lucy and Susie sat in the chairs opposite him, tears running down Lucy’s face. They’d tried to get hold of Felipe, but there was no reply.

“What did he _sound_ like?” Kimi asked.

“Disguised his voice,” Lucy mumbled. “Didn’t say much. Just that he had Daniel and we should think twice about crossing him in future.”

“You don’t _know_ he has Daniel,” Susie tried to comfort her.

“He has him, Susie,” Lucy snapped. “I knew there was something wrong. I told you.”

“Then we need to find out who this bastard is,” Kimi said. He hated himself for it, but he had grown to – ‘like’ wasn’t the right word, but he wasn’t sure what the right one was. “What about Valtteri?”

“He’s not in deep enough,” Susie said. “I’ve text him. He knows what’s going on, but I don’t know what he can do.”

Sebastian leaned against the far wall, still trying to understand what was going on. Christian had known who was in charge. It was whoever was in charge that he had warned Sebastian against.

He looked again at the photo he had been given, at the happy family he had left behind. Christian, a woman Sebastian had to assume was his wife, a teenager with a smile that gave away the fact she didn’t want to be there, and another man. Sebastian couldn’t figure out who he was, a brother or friend he guessed, but he seemed familiar. This was Christian’s family. This was the reason Christian had kidnapped him.

 _Protect them from him_.

The message was written on the back in light pencil. Obviously he had been anticipating this kind of end for a while. Protect them from who?

From whoever his boyfriend and his assistant were trying to find, presumably.

“What I don’t get,” Susie said, slowly. “Was how you even found out Michael was a spy in the first place.”

“I did background checks,” Jenson said quickly.

“No, the NSO aren’t stupid. They would have been able to pass through you’re check easily,” Susie said. “They did. That’s why you didn’t realise Michael was a spy straight away. If you found out about that, it’s because they wanted you to.”

“Or we got lucky,” Jenson said, but Kimi wasn’t listening to him anymore. Susie sounded like she was going somewhere.

“Now why would they want you to know one of their own was a spy?” Susie asked. “They must have known what you would have done”

“Unless they wanted me to kill him,” Kimi said. Susie nodded, that was what she had thought. She didn’t know if it would be relevant, but it was unusual, and she thought she’d bring it up in case it sparked any other thoughts.

“If they wanted Michael dead, why get Kimi to do it?” Jenson asked.

Susie shrugged. “Maybe he – the one in charge – didn’t want people to know he wanted Michael dead. Or Michael already suspected him. Or maybe he just didn’t want to get his hands dirty. Maybe it was just for convenience.”

That wasn’t the important question though. “But if he wanted Michael dead in the first place, why go through all this to punish you for it?” Lucy asked, quietly.

“Christian said his boss cared way too much about this,” Sebastian piped up, causing everyone to look at him.

Susie stood, uncertainly, peering around Kimi who was stood protectively in front of Sebastian. “What did he say about his boss? Did he say a name?”

“No,” Sebastian said. “He just said that his boss was obsessed with this. That the NSO used to be the good guys, but they threw all that away to go after Kimi. He said he didn’t want to do this anymore, but his boss threatened him with his family. This wasn’t Christian’s fault. He didn’t want to do what he did.”

“It’s too late for that now,” Jenson muttered, unsympathetically.

“Did he say anything else?” Susie said, softly. “Anything at all.”

Sebastian thought for a moment, then shook his head. That was all he could remember.

“Why would he care so much if he wanted Michael dead?” Kimi asked.

“There were a lot of people on that train,” Lucy pointed out. “A lot of people died. Maybe he cared about one of them.”

“Oh, well that narrows it down,” Jenson said. “We’re looking for a homophobic guy who’s loved one died in the train crash.”

“Homophobic?” Lucy asked. “Where did you get that from?”

“Michael said his boss didn’t approve of Michael’s relationship with Felipe,” Jenson remembered.

“That’s still a lot of people though,” Susie said, trying to remember quite how many people had died in the train crash. All those people would have dozens of people that cared about them.

“Do you think it’s worth limiting it to people who might have known about Kimi and Sebastian?” Lucy asked.

“I’m telling you, _nobody_ knew about us,” Kimi snapped.

“And besides, anybody could have let that information slip,” Susie said, ignoring Kimi. “It didn’t have to be the head of the NSO.”

“Look for people with unusual jobs,” Kimi instructed Jenson, who was already typing at the computer.

“No, they could be anything,” Lucy said. “Susie was a teacher before she went into hiding.”

“Teacher?” Sebastian said, slowly, looking down at the photo. Something clicked in his head and everything came together. “I know who it is! But we need to go. _Now_.”


	36. The head of the NSO

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I didn't just decide out of the blue to make this guy the leader. Here's Seb's logic behind his answer:  
> 1\. This person didn’t like Michael’s relationship with Felipe.  
> 2\. This person cared about somebody on the train that had been hurt.  
> 3\. The NSO was concerned about the fact Kimi had ‘tried’ to kill his own friend.  
> 4\. People do stupid things for love. Christian thought the whole scenario was a stupid thing.  
> 5\. This person knew about Kimi and Seb.  
> A lot of things got shared at Fun for Fathers. Sebastian liked to think it was like the mums gossiping on the school playground. They had discussed crushes once and Nathan had mentioned that he started seeing a man called Kimi Räikkönen. He wasn’t the only one who had a crush though.  
> The killer clue, though, had been seeing his daughter’s old teacher looking back at him from the photo.
> 
> Sorry if this is a little patronizing and you already got it, but there you go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really, really didn't realise what was going on until a couple of chapters ago (where Seb and Christian were talking about the NSO), and then it hit me. 
> 
> Also, we're back down to 40 chapters, but just because I put this one all together as one.

Christian was dead.

He’d known before he arrived, but seeing him there, still covered in blood…

There was just so much blood.

People seemed to think he didn’t care about this sort of thing, but Christian had been the closest thing he’d had to a friend in a long time – one of the few people he cared about. And now he was gone.

Kimi Räikkönen hurt too many people. It wasn’t fair.

He gulped down tears and looked over at Valtteri, who had been the one to tell him of the rescue operation, but it was too late now. Sebastian was gone. Christian was gone. They still had Daniel – another stroke of genius from Christian – but that wouldn’t give them Kimi. He could mess with the bastards on the on the other side of Valtteri’s job, maybe find out some things about them that Valtteri didn’t know, but it wasn’t getting back at Kimi. He’d wanted to hurt him, _really_ hurt him.

Christian kept going on about how Sebastian was innocent, how Sebastian had never asked for any of this. But Christian hadn’t understood _why_ he was doing this. He hadn’t been able to tell anyone why, not even Christian.

“What are you going to do now?” Valtteri asked, quietly.

Why did they always think he knew what to do?

“Did Christian tell them my name?”

Valtteri shook his head. “No. They’re trying to figure it out, though.”

“How do you think they’ll do?”

Valtteri shrugged. “I don’t know. They’re saying a lot of the right things, but I don’t know if it’s anything to panic about.”

“I could leave,” he mused, sitting on the floor across the corridor from Christian’s body. The look in his eye scared Valtteri a little. He wasn’t looking at a sane man, but he’d always known that. “I could just go.”

“What would happen to the NSO?”

“Do you think I can’t run it from elsewhere?” He laughed a little, sadly, and patted the space next to him for Valtteri to sit down. The Finn didn’t move. “Yeah, I could leave. Wait my time. Get Räikkönen when he least expects it.”

The idea sounded good to him. What had he said? A fresh start. It sounded right. It _felt_ right.

Valtteri thought he was mad. He should have just let Räikkönen go and save them all a lot of trouble, but he wouldn’t. Couldn’t. He didn’t bother making the suggestion.

“What about Daniel?” Valtteri asked.

“What about him?” he said. “We have him. It’ll teach your lot to stay out of my business in future. He dies. He’s no use to us, not like you, and he saw my face. I can’t just let him leave. I’ll pack up and go and you can kill him.”

“Me?”

“Yeah,” he said, frowning. “Unless you’ve got a problem with that.”

“No,” Valtteri said, quickly. “I’ll give you a day?”

“Yep, sounds good,” he said, using the wall to pull himself up off of the floor. “I should get ready. Phone Christian’s family. They can decide what to do about…”

He glanced down at Christian. How could he have let this happen? He was trying to protect one person and he’d just lost another. There was only one thing he could do now, really.

Valtteri watched him go, a forced smile pushing his face up a little. He had no idea what was the right side to be on anymore, but killing Daniel definitely wasn’t on his to do list.

 

Ivy and Felipinho were safely in bed, settled and asleep within minutes. Ivy was a good girl, Felipe thought. She got on well with Felipinho, and that had been his main concern. He still didn’t quite believe his son really got on so well with the other children. After everything that had happened…

Someone banged repeatedly on the door, almost shaking it out of its frame and Felipe rushed to answer it in fear that it would wake up the children. Rob burst in.

“We need to go. Now.”

 

There was shouting coming from downstairs again.

_No, Rob. I am not going with you. Calm down. Cannot just drop everything and go. What about school?_

_We need to go now. Kimi is blaming you for what happened to Sebastian._

_What? How do you know about Kimi and Sebastian? What’s going on?_

It had woken Felipinho up. His room looked the wrong way round, but then he realised he was sleeping at the end of the bed. Ivy was still fast asleep at the other end. The shouting was getting louder and he thought maybe he should wake her. But Daddy had always told him not to wake people when they were sleeping, so he closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but the shouting was too loud.

_I need to protect you, Felipe. After everything that’s happened, I need to protect you._

_Rob, I don’t understand. Go home. Go to bed. You’re obviously upset about what’s happened. Come back in the morning. Rob?_

He needed to know what was going on. Adults weren’t very good at sorting out their mess.

The voices were in the living room, but they suddenly fell quieter as Felipinho very slowly made his way downstairs.

The door to the living room was shut, and Felipinho pushed it open as quietly as he could, because if it was a monster or a baddie, he needed to run up stairs before it could see him and he wasn’t very good at running on the stairs.

It wasn’t a monster. Or a baddie. It was Mr Smedley.

He looked up as soon as the door opened, smiling down at him. Felipinho looked at him, confused. He was holding Daddy, who looked like he’d fallen asleep on the sofa _again_ , but he had something on his face, like a little blanket. Felipinho looked between Daddy and Mr Smedley. Nobody said anything for a moment.

“Why were you shouting?” Felipinho whispered. He didn’t want to wake Daddy up.

“I… I wasn’t shouting.”

“Yes you were. I heard you” Felipinho said. “Is Ivy not allowed to sleep over anymore?”

“No, but we’re going to do something different instead,” Mr Smedley said, grinning. He let Daddy sleep on the sofa, then crouched down in front of Felipinho, his hands on his shoulders. “We’re going to go on an adventure. Right now.”

“Now?” Felipinho asked. “But it’s night time.”

“I know, that’s why it’s an adventure,” Mr Smedley said. “I need you to do something really important for me. I need you to wake Ivy up and tell her we’re going on an adventure. All her stuff is already in the car outside. Then I need you to get one of the bags from over there,” He pointed into the hall where there were lots of bags. “And go and fill it up with all your clothes.”

“ _All_ my clothes?” Felipinho asked.

“Yep,” Mr Smedley said. “We need them for our adventure.”

Felipinho grinned, all his sleepiness gone. He went to rush out to get a bag, then a thought occurred to him and he spun back around. Mr Smedley was knelt beside Daddy again.

“You love Daddy, don’t you Mr Smedley?”

“Yep,” Mr Smedley said. “More than anything in the world.”

 


	37. The Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seb knows what's going on but can he get to Felipe in time? Yeah, this is a bit of a fast chapter...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this is a little fast. There's been a lot of build up and here it all is. The outcome.  
> Also sorry for what you found out in the last two chapters. I hate me too.

“And take a right... _here_ ,” Sebastian called, peering up from his phone to the badly lit cul-de-sac he had made Kimi pull into. He scanned the houses for a moment, trying to find the right one, then jumped out of the car when he did.

“Seb, wait,” Kimi called after him, but it was no use. Sebastian was rushing towards one of the houses before Kimi was out of the car and banging on the door.

“Rob!” he called up, his voice shattering the silence of the night. “Rob! I need to talk to you! Now! Open the door now!”

“Seb, are you insane?” Kimi hissed, dragging his boyfriend away from the door. Sebastian hadn’t told him why they were here, only that he knew who they needed to go to and they needed to go now. He didn’t like this. Sebastian had already been through too much. He needed to go home. To rest. “Come away. Tell me what you think’s going on.”

“No,” Sebastian said, pulling away from Kimi and hammering on the door again. “Rob! Open the door _right now_ or I’m going to kick it in!”

There was no reply. Sebastian drew back to kick the door, but his foot bounced easily off of the door and he fell back, clutching it.

“He’s not in.”

They spun around to see an old lady in a dressing gown leaning over the garden fence between the house she had just left and Rob’s. “It looks like you’re too late. He’s packed up and went this evening.”

“Gone?” Kimi asked. “Gone where?”

“How should I know?” the woman said. “He just packed up his car and left. You would have thought he’d said goodbye to us, or at least let us know he was leaving, but no.”

“Back in the car,” Sebastian said, and, without even saying a word to the woman, he darted back towards the car.

“Sorry about him,” Kimi said, though he had no idea why, before following Sebastian back into the car.

 

“Come on, Felipinho,” Mr Smedley said, shepherding him into the car. Ivy was already sleeping in the back of the car and Felipinho squeezed in next to her. The car wasn’t big enough for this much stuff, Felipinho thought. They would have to leave some of it behind. What kind of adventure would need so much stuff? And did they even have a sword? Every adventurer needed a sword.

“Why can’t we wait until morning?” Felipinho asked. He was tired now. Being an adventurer was going to be fun, he knew, and being an adventurer with Daddy and Mr Smedley was going to be even more fun, but he wanted to sleep, and he wasn’t very good at sleeping in the car and there was too much stuff in there anyway.

“Because,” Mr Smedley said. He leaned over and strapped Felipinho into the car.

“We don’t have my car seat.”

“We don’t need your car seat,” Mr Smedley said. “We need to go now, Felipinho. Because there are some bad people after us. But it’s going to be ok. I’m going to look after you. And Daddy. I promise.”

Mr Smedley stood and slammed the door shut. There was silence for a moment and Felipinho felt himself falling asleep. Then there was a loud bang and he was awake again.

A gun!

Mr Smedley had a gun!

His teacher got into the driver’s seat next to Daddy and they were driving. It was like something from a film and Felipinho peered out of the window, trying to see what was happening outside. It must have been the bad guys. This was like a _real_ adventure.

Kimi, the zombie, was stood in the street beside a very broken car, shouting after them.

Kimi was the bad guy?

 

“Calm down,” Susie said, trying to get Valtteri to talk to her. She was on the phone to agents that were staying in the same city as Daniel, who were trying to reassure her that there was nothing going on. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“He went to Daniel and beat him up,” Valtteri explained, not daring to look at Lucy. She was sat in the same chair she had been sat in when Sebastian had rushed out of the head quarters, taking Kimi with him. “Christian figured it out. Kimi was telling him names of clients – it was a game he was playing to keep Kimi guessing. And Christian did a little bit of digging and came up with Daniel Ricciardo’s name. He wants me to go and kill him.”

“ _Who_?” Lucy demanded. She was shaking so hard she thought she might fall off of the chair and Susie had to put her arm over the girl’s shoulder to keep her still. “You know, don’t you? You know who’s doing all this? You’ve known all along.”

“The NSO were supposed to be the good people,” Valtteri said, ashamed. “They worked for the government at one point, didn’t they?” He sounded like he was desperate to be right. He needed to be right. But he didn’t believe himself.

“ _At one point,_ exactly,” Susie said. “Not anymore. Please don’t say you’re working for them, Valtteri. You are a good person.”

“Who is he?” Lucy demanded.

“He’s gone crazy,” Valtteri said. “He’s not thinking straight. He’s obsessed with this. He’s been obsessed since before Michael died.”

“Who?”

“Rob Smedley.”

 

_“It’s all going to be ok. I’m not going to let them hurt you again, I promise.”_

_There was a hand against his forehead, then lips._

_“I like it that you love Daddy. Then he can be happy again.”_

_Felipinho?_

_“I’m glad you like it, little man. Maybe we can make him even happier than before, hey? Is Ivy still asleep?”_

_“Think so.”_

_He needed to wake up. He needed to get Felipinho out of here and-_

_“Maybe you should go to sleep too, hey?”_

_“I can’t. I’m too excited. I’ve never been on an adventure before.”_

_“It’ll be exciting, yeah, but you need to go to sleep now.”_

_“When will you go to sleep?”_

_“I’m can’t sleep, I’m driving!” Rob laughed and the sound made Felipe cringe a little. He managed to squeeze his eyes tight shut, waking a little more. Driving? Driving where? “I’ll sleep when we get there.”_

“Where?”

Felipe rubbed his eyes, and then his temples, trying to wake himself up. It was dark outside, but the lamp posts were speeding past. They were going too fast.

“Felipe?” Rob took his eyes off of the road for a second.

“We’re going on an adventure, Daddy,” Felipinho said from behind him, using the seat in front of him to bring himself forward.

“No,” Felipe squinted at Rob, whose eyes were back on the road. “No, said we weren’t coming. Said I wasn’t going with you, please, Rob.”

“I have to protect you,” Rob said. “All I’ve ever done is to protect you. I’m doing the right thing. I promise.”

“Stop the car, Rob.”

“I can’t we’re on the motorway.”

“Rob, stop the car and let me go,” Felipe said.

“Let you go?” Rob laughed. “You’re making out like I kidnapped you.”

“You _did_ ,” Felipe hissed, tears beginning to sting his eyes again.

“You said you wanted a fresh start, Felipe,” Rob said. “I know about Kimi and what he did to Michael and what he tried to do to you. Felipe, he tried to _kill_ you. I’m protecting you. I’m going to take you away, some place safe, and we can have a fresh start. Together. Like you said.”

“Never said that, Rob,” Felipe said. “Don’t think you are well. Don’t think you should be doing this. Rob, _please_.”

“It’s going to be ok,” Rob whispered, taking one hand off of the wheel to squeeze Felipe’s. Felipe pulled his hand away quickly, the tears that were biting his eyes beginning to fall down his face. “We’re going to go somewhere safe and- No.”

Something in the rear view mirror had caught Rob’s eye. Felipe spun around, giving a weak smile to his son. Behind them he could only see the headlights of a second car, very close behind theirs, a little too close.

 

“You’re going to cause an accident,” Sebastian cried.

“You want him to stop, don’t you?” Kimi snapped, his eyes on the car in front of them.

By the time they reached Felipe’s house, the car had been leaving. Kimi had been certain they lost it when Rob shot the car but they were back on their tale now and there was nowhere for Rob to go.

“Kimi, there are kids in the car,” Sebastian cried.

“Don’t worry,” Kimi said. “I got this.”

“You’re going to crash.”

“I’m not going to crash.”

 

Felipe launched for the steering wheel, knocking Rob’s hands away in the process. He needed to get them out of this. Rob was mad. The teacher slammed on the breaks, sending them all forward. The car that had been following them crashed into them from behind and the car screeched off of the road.

Once again, everything went black.


	38. The Hospital

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody's safe and well... sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it! This chapter was a lot of hard work, especially as a lot of it was completely rewritten, but here you are! Also, I'm not entirely sure what's going on with chapters, which is why we're down to 39. :/

Valtteri sat at Daniel’s bed, waiting for the others to arrive. He’d been beaten half to death, but the doctors said he was going to be fine, the anaesthetic wearing off any minute now, but he was still worried. He’d no idea how long Daniel had been out cold when the agents finally got into Daniel’s flat. It must have been nearly a day. He was such an idiot. Whether the NSO were the ‘good guys’ or not Susie and Daniel had been like family to him since he was a kid. He should never have let this happen.

Movement outside caught his eye and he looked up to see Lucy stood behind the door, her face visible through the circular window. Her face was streaked with tears. She’d been even more worried than him. He waved for her to come in but she shook her head.

One day these two were going to tell each other how they felt, Valtteri thought. Then they’d both feel like the biggest pair of idiots in the world.

Susie eventually managed to drag Lucy into the private room, but Lucy was still nervous to approach. Tears stuck to her eyelashes, her eyes still red from the last crying session.

“The doctors said he’s going to be fine,” Valtteri said, standing so that Lucy could sit in his chair.

“What do they know?” Lucy said, unable to take her eyes off of Daniel. The bruises on his face were so dark and harsh. She didn’t understand how anyone could do that to someone so nice. And for what? What had they gained from attacking him? Nothing.

Susie laughed, leading Lucy to the chair. “Quite a bit, actually. They said the operation went fine. He’s going to be fine.”

“I’m going to get a drink,” Valtteri said, not able to sit there knowing he could have prevented this sooner. “Do you want anything?”

“No, thank you,” Lucy said, still watching Daniel.

Susie stared at her. “What?”

“I don’t want anything, thank you,” she said, quietly, barely acknowledging what she was saying. She had Daniel’ nearest hand in hers, holding it tightly and waiting for him to wake up like the doctors had told her he would.

Susie raised her eyebrows and turned back to Valtteri. He gave a weak smile, then disappeared.

“You like him, don’t you?” Susie said, grinning at Lucy.

Lucy wasn’t even looking at her. “Valtteri?”

“Daniel.”

“Oh,” Lucy said, quietly. She smiled weakly, the tears beginning to form in her eyes again. She looked up at Susie, struggling to keep the smile on her face. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not to him,” she said, laughing a little. “You need to tell him.”

“I’m going to,” Lucy said, struggling to keep her voice relatively calm. “But what if…”

“He likes you,” Susie said. “I heard him tell Kimi. Sort of.”

Lucy’s eyes grew wide and her mouth fell open. Daniel squeezed her hand.

 

There was nobody there when Felipe blinked back into consciousness. He had no idea where he was and started to panic, bringing one of the nurses over. There were bandages around his head again, but he didn’t remember anything from the night before, and it only made it worse. He kept asking questions, mainly concerning Felipinho, but she wouldn’t speak to him. When she had finished checking he was well enough, she let in the visitor who had been waiting outside.

“Sebastian?”

Sebastian offered the nurse a weak smile as she left, then sat in the chair beside Felipe’s bed. He didn’t know Felipe well. They crossed in Eggplant Press head-quarters a couple of times but they had never really said much to each other. The nurse had told Sebastian that he didn’t remember anything, and Sebastian wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“You are ok?” Felipe asked. It seemed like a stupid thing to say with bandages around his head and a cast on his arm. Sebastian’s smile eased a little.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “They weren’t nasty to me. Not really. I suppose.”

He still couldn’t quite believe Christian was dead. He’d barely known the man, not really, but he still had the picture he had been given.

“What happened?” Felipe asked. “I mean…” He lifted the broken arm in explanation and Sebastian sighed. He was going to have to explain this.

“There was a car accident,” he said. “Kimi and I were following behind you. You swerved and broke hard, we hit into the back of you and you went off of the road.”

“Felipinho?”

Sebastian looked down at his feet, but didn’t answer.

Felipe pulled himself up, ignoring the pain that shot through him when he did so.

“What happened, Seb, please?”

“Felipinho’s fine,” Sebastian insisted. “Scared about you, but that’s it.”

“Thank god,” Felipe sighed, falling back into the pillows that were keeping him sat up. Then a thought crossed his mind. “Where were we going and why were you following us?”

Sebastian noticed how he didn’t ask about how Kimi was. Maybe he hadn’t considered that Kimi might have been hurt too. Maybe he just didn’t care.

“You were in the car with Rob Smedley,” Sebastian said. “He was the one who took me. Felipinho said that you were arguing with him and when he came downstairs you had a cloth over your face and you were asleep. He kept going on about this adventure Rob was taking you on. We don’t know what happened, but we think…”

Sebastian stopped himself. He didn’t want to go into why it had happened. Into the fact that Rob was clearly a nutter and deserved to be locked up for a long time. Susie said he’d probably get away with it, working for the NSO, and it made Sebastian feel a little sick. He wasn’t right in the head. He needed help.

“You think?” Felipe prompted. He was still struggling to remember.

Sebastian shook his head. “It’s nothing. The doctors said your memory will probably come back with time. Rob’s in custody now, but they’ve only got what Felipinho said, so we don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Where is he? I need to see him.”

“He’s staying with Mark and Fernando,” Sebastian said. “I know you might not be please about that but we didn’t know who else to let him stay with and Fernando’s on his emergency form and the doctors were talking about foster care until you were well enough.”

“Why wouldn’t I-?” It hit him suddenly what had happened between them. Michael and Kimi and all the others. That was why Sebastian was here to see him. The others were all too scared. “Felipinho’s coming home with me.”

“The doctors aren’t going to let you out until tomorrow at the earliest,” Sebastian said. “They really are sorry for what happened. All of them.”

“Then why aren’t they here to tell me?”

“Because they didn’t think you would want an argument as soon as you woke up,” Sebastian said. “Please, Felipe. They care about you. A lot.”

Felipe shook his head. He had no idea what had happened last night, but he knew what they had done. They’d ruined his life. They’d almost killed him, almost made Felipinho an orphan. Sebastian sighed, hopelessly and nodded. He wasn’t sure if he blamed him or not…

 

It was the middle of the night before Felipe got another visitor. He couldn’t sleep. He’d been asleep for too long and his mind was wide awake, even if his eyes were closed.

He had nobody.

It was just him and Felipinho now, and he wasn’t sure if he was relieved about that.

The door to the private room opened silently, but the light spilling through from the corridor outside made Felipe open his eyes. In the semi darkness, he couldn’t see who the new comer was but, judging by the way he lurked in the corner, he probably wasn’t a doctor, and it was too late for visitors. When Felipe reached for the button to call the nurse, the visitor leapt across the small room to stop him.

“It’s ok. I’m not going to hurt you, Felipe, it’s me.”

When he stopped panicking for a second, he realised who it was. It only made him panic more, but now he couldn’t move, couldn’t take his eyes off of Rob. He had a bandage wrapped around his arm and a gash on his forehead, but the smile on his face said he was fine.

Rob knelt beside the bed, holding Felipe’s hand. Felipe couldn’t move, couldn’t pull away.

“I was so worried about you,” Rob whispered. “They wouldn’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t even tell me if you were alive.”

Felipe found his voice stuck in his throat. There were tears in Rob’s eyes, gleaming a little when the light from the corridor hit his face.

“They’ve not let me see Felipinho, either,” Rob said. “They’ve had me in a cell, like _I’m_ the criminal here. I was so scared I’d lost you, Felipe.” He leaned forward and pressed a shaking kiss onto Felipe’s cheek, his tears wetting his face. Felipe finally found the strength to flinch away. Rob froze.

“Felipe?”

Felipe said nothing. Rob’s grip on his hand tightened.

“Felipe, I was protecting you,” he whispered. “You remember, don’t you? I was protecting you and Felipinho from Kimi.”

“You….” Felipe mumbled, still struggling to get his voice out of his throat. “You kidnapped me. With the cloth and… and…”

“I shouldn’t have done that, I know,” Rob said. “I just panicked. He was coming for you and I didn’t know what he was going to do. I couldn’t lose you.”

“Lose me?” He wasn’t Rob’s to lose.

“I love you, Felipe.”

“You don’t know me,” Felipe whispered. They were the same four words as before, but now they were filled with desperation. Rob _couldn’t_ know him.

“Two years, I’ve been Felipinho’s tutor. For two years I’ve watched you on the playground and I’ve listened to him talk about you,” Rob said. “I listened to Michael go on about you the entire time you were together. And I… I fell in love. And I know you like me too. I’m still the same person you went for coffee with, Felipe.”

Felipe stared at him as if he’d gone mad.

“They’re going to ask you what happened tomorrow,” Rob said. “You do what you think’s right, but I’ll be here for you, if you want me, ok?”

He pressed a kiss to the hand that he was holding and stood. He gave Felipe a weak smile before he left him in the darkness again.

 

“DADDY!”

As soon as Felipinho was out of Fernando’s grip, he raced across the room and jumped onto Felipe’s bed. Felipe held him close, surprised a little to feel tears on his chest. He looked down to find the child crying. All thoughts of arguing with Fernando were gone.

“What’s the matter?”

“They think Mr Smedley’s a bad man,” Felipinho sobbed. “They said he was trying to take us away and I should have stopped him but I couldn’t.”

Felipe’s voice stopped in his throat and there was nothing he could do but hold Felipinho tighter and kiss the top of his head.

“And I thought you were going to be gone,” Felipinho said, his voice muffled when he pressed his face into his father’s chest.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Felipe said, finally finding his voice. “I am never going to be gone, ok? I’m never going to leave you. I promise.”

“Is Mr Smedley a bad man?” Felipinho asked.

Felipe gulped again. The entire night was clear in his mind, but so was what Rob had said. It was scary but it made sense. “I… I don’t know, Felipinho.”

Felipinho moaned a little, curling up a little. “But… but he said… but he loves you. And you were happy. Remember?”

“I know, I know,” Felipe whispered. “Sometimes bad people look like good people. I’m sorry.”

He looked up at Fernando, holding Felipinho as close as possible whilst he cried. Fernando shifted uneasily, not knowing what he could do that would convince his friend he wasn’t evil.

 


	39. The First End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These final two chapters are alternate endings set a year after Chapter 37. Felipe had a choice to make: tell the truth, or trust Rob. In the first end he's chosen to back up his son's story and tell the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have three questions for you to think about over these final two chapters.  
> 1\. Which ending do you prefer?  
> 2\. Which ending is the 'happy ending'?  
> 3\. Which ending would Felipe chose, if he could see the outcomes a year later?
> 
> I was having a debate with my friend over the second one, so it would be nice to see what you thought (for all the questions, not just the second one), because I really don't know the answer.

“Is this it?” Kimi snapped, slamming the door to the office shut behind him and sending a pile of folders flying in the process. Sebastian winced, but didn’t look up from his computer. Kimi glared at him, waiting for a reaction, but Sebastian was too engrossed in his work. He was always too engrossed in his work. “Sebastian, look at me.”

“I’m working,” Sebastian muttered.

“You’re always working,” Kimi said.

“It’s never bothered you before,” Sebastian said. “In fact, I’m surprised you even noticed.”

“What?”

“Lewis Hamilton is now the biggest company in this city,” Sebastian snapped, finally looking up from the computer. “Do you know who did that? Me. I did. Don’t you care about that?”

“I’m sure you care enough about that for the both of us,” Kimi spat. He despised the company and what it had turned Sebastian into. It seemed such a long time ago he’d had Sebastian wrapped in his arms, comforting him when the stress of the company became too much for him. He’d changed so much in the past year. He was barely the same person anymore.

“If you’re going to be like this, just leave, Kimi,” Sebastian said, returning his attention to the computer. “I don’t bother you at work.”

Kimi scoffed. “You never bother me at all. When was the last time you spoke to me? You know what, never mind. It’s clear what you’re more interested in.”

He kicked the folders that had fallen to the floor on the way out, knowing he looked and acted about ten but not caring in the slightest. Sebastian sighed as he left and fell back into the chair, still not sure what exactly he’d done wrong.

 

“No, Mark. No, get away from me. Come any closer and I’ll scream. Mark please. Stop it.” Fernando stumbled closer into the corner tears beginning to squeeze their way out of his eyes. He should have gone for the door but now he was in the corner and Mark was getting closer. “Mark, stop it.”

“She’s harmless,” Mark said, laughing again. This spider wasn’t even particularly big. Fernando was going to need to get over his fear of spiders one day. “Just come and look at her.”

“Nope,” Fernando said, not taking his eyes off of Mark. “How come we get a new office and everything and still end up with lots of spiders?”

“I think they’re attracted to you, mate,” Mark laughed, setting the glass with the spider underneath down on the desk.

“Is not funny,” Fernando snapped, stepping out of the corner a little bit. He glanced down at the spider, trying to get out from its see through prison, and cringed. “Please just get rid of it.”

“Alright, alright,” Mark said, scooping the glass and the piece of paper up. There were no windows in their new office, which neither of them had been happy about, but that was the way the world worked. “Grab the door for me.”

“Just kill it,” Fernando complained, settling back in the chair he’d quickly jumped out of.

“You can’t just kill it, it’s a living thing,” Mark said, clumsily opening the door with his elbow and almost running into Felipe. He dropped the glass and the spider in surprise, and the spider quickly rushed under the book shelf, ready to scare another day. Fernando watched it go, whimpering a little.

“If you want a lift, we’re going to have to go now,” Felipe said, quietly. They hadn’t long been speaking properly and he was still a little nervous about them thinking he had been an idiot. “Have just had a call from the school and they want me to go to some meeting.”

“Sure, let me just save this,” Fernando said, nodding to his work. If they went now, they were going to be half an hour early for his appointment, but their car had packed in – again – and they had been lucky Felipe had offered them a lift in the first place. “There you are. Let’s go.”

The hospital wasn’t that far away, but it was a bit of a distance to walk. It was only Fernando’s third session and he didn’t want to turn up looking a mess. Mark was to wait outside. That was important. He needed to know he could do this alone, but that Mark was there for him.

Mark wouldn’t say the last year was worse than the year before, he thought as he settled into the chair outside the counsellor’s office. The two years as a whole had, in general, just been a nightmare, and he was hoping the sessions would be the beginning of the end to that. Felipe made his leave almost immediately. Maybe he was late for that meeting, or maybe he thought Mark blamed him for Fernando’s breakdown. It wasn’t that far from the truth. This whole thing had been made worse with Felipe not speaking to him, but Mark knew he couldn’t blame him for that. If it were the other way around, he wouldn’t have forgiven them quite so easily.

But Fernando was definitely getting better, a lot better since he had his friend back – almost – and he was going to these sessions. Everything was getting better.

 

“Felipe Massa,” Felipe called, bursting into the office. “You wanted to speak to me about my son?”

The office was empty but the teacher sat at the desk. The woman smiled up at him, but it was obviously fake and in no way settled him.

“Take a seat, Mr Massa,” she said, pointing to one of the chairs behind the desk with her pen. Felipe sat down, uncertainly. “I’m Felipinho’s progress tutor Sue Beestly. I’m afraid Felipinho got into a fight today.”

“A fight?” Felipe asked. “What? Is he ok?”

“He came off the worst of the two of them. He’s with the school nurse now, but I’m sure he’ll be fine. Just cuts and bruises,” Beestly said. “The other boy’s parents have been called in and he’s at home now. Don’t worry. He will be punished but, from what we can tell, it was Felipinho that started the fight.”

“ _What_?”

“There was name calling beforehand, but from what everyone has said, your son threw the first punch,” Beestly said, no sympathy at all for the complete confusion this had caused.

“What name calling?” Felipe asked.

“That’s not really the point, Mr Massa.”

“Sure it is, what were they saying to him?” Felipe asked, anger beginning to bubble.

“Felipinho has been what some people would call a ‘problem child’ since I first became his progress tutor,” Beestly said. “Though this is the first physical incident of a fight, he doesn’t make it easy on himself. He makes no effort to mix with the other children. He won’t talk to me _at all_. I don’t think he’s ever said one word directly to me. We understand there were some issues with his last progress tutor, but I cannot let this kind of behaviour just go unnoticed.”

“Some _issues_?” Felipe cried. “I’m not going to sit here and listen to this. Where’s my son? I’m taking him and I’m leaving.”

“Maybe it would be easier for Felipinho to start fresh someplace else?” Beestly suggested.

“ _Someplace else_. You’re just going to kick him out because he’s picked on. Maybe I don’t want my child in a school like that,” Felipe cried. “If you can’t deal with a ‘problem child’ maybe you’re in the wrong job. Can you go and get him please? I want to go.”

 

“Am I in trouble?” Felipinho asked, quietly, sat in the front seat of the car where Felipe could keep an eye on him. They’d gone to the hospital. Felipe didn’t like the look of the cut on his head where he’d apparently just ‘tripped over’ and he didn’t trust the school to look after him properly, but the doctors had said there was nothing but a cut there, and none of the other bruises would be serious either.

“No,” Felipe said. “Well, should not hit people, Felipinho. You know that. I thought you were better than that.”

“I know,” Felipinho said, his bottom lip shaking. “But he kept saying all these nasty things and I didn’t know what to do and I just wanted him to stop.”

“I know but…” Felipe sighed. What was he supposed to say? “You know you’re supposed to tell the teacher if somebody’s picking on you. You can’t just hit them.”

“But he does it all the time,” Felipinho said, tears strangling his voice. “And then I tell people and they don’t do anything and then it gets even worse.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you were sad, and I didn’t want to make you anymore sad,” Felipinho said, quietly.

“Oh, Felipinho,” Felipe said. He pulled over the car half way home and turned to properly look at his son. He found a tissue in his pocket wiped the tears that were pouring down his face. “It isn’t your job to make sure I am happy, ok? It’s my job to make sure you’re happy. And if you’re not, you need to tell me, so I can make you happy, you know?”

“I don’t want to go back there, Daddy,” Felipinho whispered. “I never want to go to school again.”

“You have to go to school,” Felipe said. “But not there. We’ll get you to a new school somewhere else. Ok?”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Felipe said, with a weak smile. “It’ll be ok. I promise.”

 


	40. The Second End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The alternative ending, set around the same time as the last ending. What if Felipe had sided with Rob and told everyone that his son had just been confused and over excited?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has read this, left comments or not. I honestly didn't think I'd finish this story when I started writing it. I didn't think I was really any good at this kind of writing but apparently this isn't the case. You have no idea how happy your comments and your kudos have made me, you brilliant, wonderful, magical people. Thank you so much.  
> Don't forget to leave your answers to the three questions.

“I am so proud of you,” Kimi said, littering every inch of Sebastian’s bare skin with kisses. He’d done it. Lewis Hamilton was now the biggest company based in the city, and Sebastian had started business with companies in his home town in Germany. The company was going international.

“Kimi, Kimi _stop_ ,” Sebastian said, giggling a little. “Lucy could walk in here any minute.”

“Nope,” Kimi said. “She has the day off.”

Sebastian stopped wriggling and frowned up at Kimi. “I didn’t give her the day off.”

“I did,” Kimi said. “Daniel asked for it.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes. He was going to need another assistant at this rate. It was all very well and good Lucy going off on her super spy missions or whatever it was she did – he pretended he didn’t really know, like he pretended he didn’t know what Kimi did – but she was going to have to put in some work at Hamilton or else things were going to start to get messy.

“Are you sure?” Sebastian asked.

“Mmmm,” Kimi said, his lips clamped to Sebastian’s neck.

 

“Daniel, where are we going?” Lucy grumbled, trying to squint through the blind fold that was wrapped around her eyes. Sebastian was going to be annoyed if he found out she had the day off to spend with Daniel, but her boss tended to keep his questions to himself.

“It’s a surprise,” Daniel said, grinning as he led Lucy through the garden. Lucy stumbled a little and their legs got tangled together again. He wasn’t very good at this. They both stumbled and fell to the floor, Lucy hitting her hand on the basket Daniel had brought out. Laughing and moaning at the pain in her hand, she tugged the blind fold off.

“A picnic?”

“Yep,” Daniel said, sitting up and wrapping his arms around her. “I think we deserve a bit of a break every now and again.”

“Hmmm,” Lucy said, not really listening. She’d already begun to dig through the basket, looking for something. Daniel pulled her away and they both fell back so they were lying on the blanket he’d put out.

“You know what today is, don’t you?”

“Thursday?”

“No,” Daniel said, grinning. “Well, it is Thursday, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Today is a year since we started going out.”

“What?” Lucy said, sitting up and looking down at Daniel. “No it isn’t. It can’t be.”

“Can be and is,” Daniel said, laughing. “You lasted a whole year. Congratulations.” Lucy’s eyes were wide and her mouth fell open. It was a look Daniel had come to adore. “Come here.”

 

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to Ivy. Happy birthday to you.”

Maybe a candle stuck in a bowl of soggy breakfast cereal wasn’t what every ten year old wanted to wake up to, but Ivy still put on a smile when Felipinho handed her the plastic bowl, the six year old grinning like an idiot. He sat on the end of her bed, waiting impatiently as Ivy peeled away the wrapping paper from her presents.

“I’m working late tonight,” Rob muttered into Felipe’s ear as they both watched the two excited children.

Felipe frowned and looked up at Rob. “Again.”

Rob smiled weakly, then took Felipe by the hand and led him into the kitchen of their small home. On the counter was yesterday’s newspaper, open on the business pages. _Hamilton CEO sets off on new adventure,_ read the headline. The article was about Sebastian Vettel’s move to take the business over to Germany, but featured a picture of Sebastian looking adoringly at Kimi. Felipe went numb when he saw it: him.

“Do you have to?” he asked quietly, flipping the paper over.

“Yes.”

“Are always working late,” Felipe complained. “Is like I never get to see you anymore.”

“And that’s _my_ fault?” Rob snapped, snatching the paper away from Felipe. “I have to work late. I have to so I can protect _you_.”

Felipe backed away from Rob, but he didn’t notice, already busy with the kettle. Before, Felipe wouldn’t have been able to believe Rob had snapped like that, but it had become the norm recently. Maybe a little longer than recently.

“You’re happy, aren’t you?” Rob asked, still not looking at him.

Felipe shuffled uncertainly. “Of course.”

“You’re happy, I’m happy, the kids are happy.” Rob turned and grinned at him, ignoring the fact the Brazilian was obviously forcing the smile he had in return. “You know I don’t like working late,” he said, softer this time. “But I have to. And, if I get this done tonight, we can watch Felipinho’s game tomorrow together, hey?”

Felipe nodded and tried to find something else to look at so it wasn’t obvious he couldn’t look at Rob. He fell into the stool at the breakfast bar and looked down at the patterns spiralling about on the plastic.

“I’ve seen you practicing with him,” Rob said, sliding a mug into Felipe’s hands. He sat in the stool beside him, nudging him a little.

Felipe looked up at him and smiled weakly. “You don’t have to work at all tomorrow?”

“Nope.”

“The mums at the school are going out tomorrow night,” Felipe said. He’d been dreading bringing this up. He knew how Rob would react, but he’d promised them he’d at least ask. “Have asked if I want to go with them.”

Rob frowned. “Why would they do that?”

Felipe shrugged. “They are my friends, I suppose. I spend so much time down there.”

Rob shook his head and laughed a little. “You don’t actually _want_ to go, do you?”

Felipe shrugged again. This was going a lot better than he’d thought it would- so far. “Would be nice, I suppose.”

“They’re not your _friends,_ Felipe,” Rob said, disgusted. He left Felipe’s side, crossing the room and taking the paper with him. “They probably asked you out as a joke. You know the mums. It’ll be the entertainment for the night. Who can get the guy to snog them first?”

“Sure they’re my friends,” Felipe said, quietly, but he knew it was no use arguing.

“I’m just trying to protect you, but if you want to go, fine,” Rob cried. When Felipe looked up, he wasn’t looking at him.

“I never get to go out,” Felipe bit back. “The only time I get to see anybody is when I’m down at the school. And if they’re not my friends then I don’t have any.”

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Mark or Fernando, or anybody for that matter. He still hated them, he always agreed when Rob pointed that out, but he missed having someone to talk to. Even Rob abandoned him most of the time, and there was just him and Ivy and Felipinho and it was _lonely_.

“If you want to go out then go out,” Rob snapped. “I don’t have time to argue about this now. I’m going to be late to work.” He paused on his way across the kitchen to kiss Felipe on the cheek, then left.

Felipe sat at the counter, still a little numb.

This was not the fresh start he’d had in mind when he’d dragged his son away from everything he’d known, but why did he ever think he deserved anything else?

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've never been so nervous posting a piece of work before.


End file.
